English Amiga Board - View Single Post - Is Practicing C coding on real Amiga 1200 or 500+ hardware a good idea?

Rango · 07 June 2019, 21:12

Hi guys. I've decided i'm going to learn C programming (from C programming A modern approach 2nd edition C99) but is practicing C (C99?) coding on real Amiga 1200 or 500+ hardware a good idea? Or is there better way to practice your code on?

I think, maybe incorrectly that real 16 bit hardware with 2MB of ram would be a good task? PC may be too challenging for beginner hence this idea.

I don't really want to deviate too much from C to Blitz or Assembly too much as that's not the goal here however some tweaks to code no problem however. Any recommendation on compiler too? @Zetr0

I also looked into Arm Cortex STM32 development boards which are way faster 52Mhz but flash memory is only 64Kb so not much one can do with graphics hence my interest in real amiga with ~2000Kb of Ram. Also i don't think anyone uses original cpu amiga cycle as everyone is using accelerators now a days so that would also be most likely implemented and hence original cpu cycle non issue.

The goal would be to perfect C on real hardware but not as advanced as PC or Linux. Baby steps is goal here, hence 16 bit attempt. The Amiga advantage here is RAM but disadvantage is CPU cycle speed unless accelerated.

The only problem i see is humongous price tag on A1200 with ~$550USD price tag.

Maybe Raspberry Pi 3 with emulation but isn't that going to create just debug nightmare?

Maybe amiga has too many eccentricities that C programming practice would not be ideal? Thoughts guys?

07 June 2019, 21:12	#1
Rango Registered User Join Date: Oct 2017 Location: Chicago, IL, USA Posts: 34	Is Practicing C coding on real Amiga 1200 or 500+ hardware a good idea? Hi guys. I've decided i'm going to learn C programming (from C programming A modern approach 2nd edition C99) but is practicing C (C99?) coding on real Amiga 1200 or 500+ hardware a good idea? Or is there better way to practice your code on? I think, maybe incorrectly that real 16 bit hardware with 2MB of ram would be a good task? PC may be too challenging for beginner hence this idea. I don't really want to deviate too much from C to Blitz or Assembly too much as that's not the goal here however some tweaks to code no problem however. Any recommendation on compiler too? @Zetr0 I also looked into Arm Cortex STM32 development boards which are way faster 52Mhz but flash memory is only 64Kb so not much one can do with graphics hence my interest in real amiga with ~2000Kb of Ram. Also i don't think anyone uses original cpu amiga cycle as everyone is using accelerators now a days so that would also be most likely implemented and hence original cpu cycle non issue. The goal would be to perfect C on real hardware but not as advanced as PC or Linux. Baby steps is goal here, hence 16 bit attempt. The Amiga advantage here is RAM but disadvantage is CPU cycle speed unless accelerated. The only problem i see is humongous price tag on A1200 with ~$550USD price tag. Maybe Raspberry Pi 3 with emulation but isn't that going to create just debug nightmare? Maybe amiga has too many eccentricities that C programming practice would not be ideal? Thoughts guys? Last edited by Rango; 07 June 2019 at 22:20.