Things the Amiga didn't get right from Day 1

[fxgogo]

Originally Posted by deimos

...I'd like to know why all the hate against AmigaBasic? I remember it being pretty decent, for a Basic, just very very slow. It was of course incompatible with 32 bit addressing, but we never knew that at the time.

I have fond memories of BASIC as a whole, and I had to suffer with PEEKS and POKES on the C64 initially. I did not enjoy the Amiga Basic as much as I did the 8bit machines. I think part of it was the whole multi-window thing. It really irritated me. But that was a prevalent UI design ethic at that point. So I can't fault Amiga Basic for that.


I think it is not seen as a viable language these days, but it's heritage can not be denied. Here is a link to the 50th celebration of the language.https://www.dartmouth.edu/basicfifty/


I would love to see a modern update to it. I wonder if there is...(running off to see what is out there).

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

It certainly had. Actually from the same vendor, Microsoft. It wasn't ROM based, but ROM-based solutions were out of fashion already back then.

So, it's not "built in".

Stop talking bullshit. How i hate this "Forentourette" of people for just the sake of "being right" even if it's complete nonsense.

[Foebane]

Originally Posted by fxgogo

I have fond memories of BASIC as a whole, and I had to suffer with PEEKS and POKES on the C64 initially. I did not enjoy the Amiga Basic as much as I did the 8bit machines. I think part of it was the whole multi-window thing. It really irritated me. But that was a prevalent UI design ethic at that point. So I can't fault Amiga Basic for that.


I think it is not seen as a viable language these days, but it's heritage can not be denied. Here is a link to the 50th celebration of the language.https://www.dartmouth.edu/basicfifty/


I would love to see a modern update to it. I wonder if there is...(running off to see what is out there).

What do you think of AMOS, the "proper" modular BASIC that made full use of the Amiga's graphical and sound abilities? I always thought it was pointless to use the Workbench GUI BASIC that you describe, when it couldn't do almost anything that AMOS can (as far as I know).

[Gorf]

Originally Posted by Steril707

So, it's not "built in".

Stop talking bullshit. How i hate this "Forentourette" of people for just the sake of "being right" even if it's complete nonsense.

[BIDEN]

C'mon man!

[/BIDEN]

No it was not "build in", nor has the A1000 any OS built in at all:
You have load it at first boot from a disk into the WCS.
And then you still need a second disk to load the complete OS aka your Workbench.

That was how the amiga operated from "day one" - which is in the title of the thread.

[Gorf]

Originally Posted by Foebane

What do you think of AMOS, the "proper" modular BASIC that made full use of the Amiga's graphical and sound abilities? I always thought it was pointless to use the Workbench GUI BASIC that you describe, when it couldn't do almost anything that AMOS can (as far as I know).

The problem was: the "GUI BASIC" was rather bad at GUI things. The system integration was next to nothing....

And ist was also lacking all the direkt gfx and sfx feature AMOS brought ... which explains the almost total lack of useful AmigaBASIC code and the success of AMOS.

At least AREXX did bring some system integration ... but it could have gone much further with that.

[fxgogo]

Originally Posted by Foebane

What do you think of AMOS, the "proper" modular BASIC that made full use of the Amiga's graphical and sound abilities? I always thought it was pointless to use the Workbench GUI BASIC that you describe, when it couldn't do almost anything that AMOS can (as far as I know).

I have never used it. In the nineties I was a 3D guy. I am very keen to try it these days as I do a lot more in the coding space now. From an outsiders perspective it does look like a powerful system.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

It certainly had. Actually from the same vendor, Microsoft. It wasn't ROM based, but ROM-based solutions were out of fashion already back then.

In the commercial world perhaps, but not for home computers. That's not to say that BASIC wasn't used in the commercial world. Popular accounting packages used in New Zealand in the 80's and early 90's were written in compiled BASIC, and lots of other stuff was too. I maintained some industrial control PCs that were programmed in GW BASIC booted off floppy disk!

Anyhow, Basic was already declining as users cared less about the Basic than other system abilities.

For most home computers BASIC wasn't just a programming language, it was the operating system. This was pretty much essential to keep the cost down while still providing functionality 'out of the box', and even machines that had (or could have) a floppy drive usually had BASIC in ROM.

But for the next generation you are right. Using BASIC as the OS didn't make sense for a machine as sophisticated as the Amiga. Just imagine if Commodore had decided we didn't need a GUI or multitasking, and commissioned Microsoft to produce a ROM BASIC for the Amiga. They couldn't even follow simple rules such as using full 32 bit addresses, so it would have been a disaster! OTOH had Commodore done that they might have gotten the Amiga out quicker and cheaper, and game developers wouldn't mind because they didn't use the OS anyway. The result would be firmly placing the Amiga in the 'gaming machine' category.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by Gorf

The problem was: the "GUI BASIC" was rather bad at GUI things. The system integration was next to nothing....

That's not totally true. The only thing it really missed was a file requester, but then other BASICs generally didn't have one either, and the OS at that time had no built-in file requester (a serious oversight, but they had so much to do and so little time...).

OTOH Amiga BASIC did have some huge improvements over previous BASICs. One was was not having line numbers. Finally you were freed from the frustrations of line-based editing and spaghetti code, and could write properly structured programs with source code that looked good too!

Another improvement was the interface to the OS, which provided access to virtually all system functions through their libraries just like other 'proper' languages. This meant you weren't limited by AmigaBASIC's built-in functions, and didn't need to use some other language (eg. machine code) to provide extra functionality.

The real problem with AmigaBASIC was that it was full of latent bugs which prevented it from running properly on accelerated machines and later OS versions. This is a pity because being interpreted isn't so much of a handicap on faster machines.

And ist was also lacking all the direkt gfx and sfx feature AMOS brought ... which explains the almost total lack of useful AmigaBASIC code and the success of AMOS.

AMOS was popular because it made programming easier for people who wanted to make games without having to know the OS or code 'bare metal'. It was promoted as a 'games creator', so those of us who wanted to do serious programming didn't even consider it (I did look at it, didn't like the way it operated, and forgot about it).

At least AREXX did bring some system integration ... but it could have gone much further with that.

The only good thing AREXX did was provide a standard for intercommunication between programs. Apart from that it's pretty sucky.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by Gorf

No it was not "build in"

True, in the same way that the cli commands and many essential tools and libraries etc. were not built-in. But this is how the Amiga was designed. The system disks (including Extras:AmigaBASIC) are effectively a part of the machine. It 'knows' what files are needed and where to find them, so you can have some tool or system stuff on another disk and it will ask you to insert it when necessary.

nor has the A1000 any OS built in at all:
You have load it at first boot from a disk into the WCS.
And then you still need a second disk to load the complete OS aka your Workbench.

'Technically' you are correct, but this was only a temporary solution to avoid having to produce new ROMs for OS updates at a time when Flash ROM was not a thing. In operation the WCS (once loaded) was identical to an actual ROM-based OS.

And it really wasn't a big deal. The kickstart didn't take long to load, and only had to be done once provided you didn't switch the machine off. Those of us who owned A1000s appreciated being able to update the OS without having to purchases and install new ROMs, and some of us even took advantage of it to patch the OS for things like recoverable RAM disks or autobooting hard drives.

[grond]

My experience from typing in listings in C64 magazines probably was the same as for most people: BASIC programs produced shit results, hex code produced better results (if you managed to copy them correctly). Everyone around me ridiculed programs written in BASIC. That was a thing only a lamer would do (of course, we didn't have any idea about programming anyway).

I personally would not have liked the Amiga any better if it had greeted one with a BASIC prompt after power-on. For much of the home market the Amiga meant that you didn't even have to type 'LOAD "*",8,1' anymore...

[Foebane]

Originally Posted by grond

My experience from typing in listings in C64 magazines probably was the same as for most people: BASIC programs produced shit results, hex code produced better results (if you managed to copy them correctly).

Just out of curiosity, did any of the C64 magazines provide software to facilitate the typing-in of listings?

Atari User magazine heard the complaints of thousands who made mistakes in typing in their listings, and they (or a third party at least) came up with "Get It Right!", a program that would sit in the Atari's memory and display a code on the side of the screen every time a line was typed in, like a checksum, of course. Those line checksums could then be checked against the printed codes in the magazine, and if they matched, the typist could be confident that the typing was correct and the program would work. I thought it was ingenious, and so did many others.

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by Gorf

[BIDEN]

C'mon man!

[/BIDEN]

No it was not "build in", nor has the A1000 any OS built in at all:
You have load it at first boot from a disk into the WCS.
And then you still need a second disk to load the complete OS aka your Workbench.

That was how the amiga operated from "day one" - which is in the title of the thread.

Yep, sorry for thr strong language. Just tired of these nitpicking arguments.
Basic wasn't built in on the Amiga like it was on the C64 or other 8-Bitters, where it was part of the experience to be greeted by that usual Basic entry mask after powering up.
Comparing this to some extra disk you had to shove in and click on a program to start it to even get it started is so far awqy from each other I don't even start to begin to understand how this is comparable.

Every C64 you buy today will still start up this way, while you will probably have to source the AmigaBasic disk on your own from somewhere these days.

[d4rk3lf]

Originally Posted by Foebane

Just out of curiosity, did any of the C64 magazines provide software to facilitate the typing-in of listings?

I don't know about magazines, but in former Yugoslavia, there were computers radio shows, and at the end, they just played C64 tapes, so you could hear that annoying screaming digital sound (similar like dial up).
Why they played that?
Because, if you record that, you could actually get a game that way.

Analog download, in it's pure awesomeness

[Foebane]

Originally Posted by d4rk3lf

I don't know about magazines, but in former Yugoslavia, there were computers radio shows, and at the end, they just played C64 tapes, so you could hear that annoying screaming digital sound (similar like dial up).
Why they played that?
Because, if you record that, you could actually get a game that way.

Analog download, in it's pure awesomeness

Yes, I know all that, I've used tapes on my Atari more than enough times. The floppy disk drive was a blessing, as was the program I had that could transfer tape-based games to floppy... but not all of them, however.

[grond]

Originally Posted by Foebane

Just out of curiosity, did any of the C64 magazines provide software to facilitate the typing-in of listings?

I'm not aware of such a program (which doesn't mean much). I have to admit I don't even remember what we used to type hex listings into. In those times I only had a C=16 anyway which had "monitor", a built-in hex editor (which was a good feature of the 264 series). This may have been what I used to type hex-encoded programs directly into the computer's memory.

[Mrs Beanbag]

the C64 palette is actually very good, from a colour theory point of view. it covers a wide range of the gamut, for only 16 colours, with lots of possible gradients &c, so in practice you can create some nice looking graphics.

in fact the Amiga does have an FM synth.. you can link two sound channels together and have the one
control the period (frequency) of the other! having to use two channels to do so, however, makes it not particularly useful and i don't believe i've ever heard anything that uses this little-known feature.

i'm something of a veteran of AMOS myself and i'm surprised there was never an A500+ bundle that came with it. it was powerful in some ways.. Commodore wouldn't like it though i guess, because it threw away their lovely GUI and did its own thing. Which in some ways was a drawback, sometimes i did just want to create a Workbench windowed app, but you couldn't. Anyway, don't get me started on AMOS too much because, in fact, it is a bad language in many ways. But you could do some good stuff with it, if you really knew what you were doing.

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by Mrs Beanbag

the C64 palette is actually very good, from a colour theory point of view.

I don't know colour theory, I'm looking from a gamer point of view


C64 fans always come up with most amusing rationalizations for that one, also BASIC ("but it could be a stepping stone to machine code!")

[Mrs Beanbag]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

I don't know colour theory, I'm looking from a gamer point of view

C64 fans always come up with most amusing rationalizations for that one, also BASIC ("but it could be a stepping stone to machine code!")

I never owned a C64.. well there are better palettes available, but at least there was Orange, a definite luxury colour in those days lmao


well the original context for "BASIC is a beginners language" was that it was invented in the 1960s when professional programmers did tend to program in machine code. it made sense in that context. it makes a lot less sense in today's world of abstract, structured languages. the kids are all about the functional programming, these days. i wouldn't recommend BASIC as a beginners language, or indeed as any language at all, tbh it's quite amazing how it persisted as such well into the 1990s.


i wanted to produce a new language for Amiga that had the low barrier to entry of AMOS but with the more modern features of something like Rust. ask me how well that's going (don't actually ask me how well that's going) but i somehow got a job as a compiler engineer so i should at least know how to do it properly, if i ever get round to doing it

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by Mrs Beanbag

well the original context for "BASIC is a beginners language" was that it was invented in the 1960s when professional programmers did tend to program in machine code. it made sense in that context. it makes a lot less sense in today's world of abstract, structured languages.

The point of BASIC back in the day was to encourage people to try their hand at programming at all, without throwing them in deep water of peeking and poking. That's why most of the other interpreters really were user friendly and let you produce simple gfx and fx with dedicated commands.

[Mrs Beanbag]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

The point of BASIC back in the day was to encourage people to try their hand at programming at all, without throwing them in deep water of peeking and poking. That's why most of the other interpreters really were user friendly and let you produce simple gfx and fx with dedicated commands.

i don't know how much gfx and fx you could do in 1964, BASIC didn't even get strings until 1965.. i get that was the rationale in the early 1980s, although plenty of other languages existed by then. i guess it was fairly simple to implement in the tiny ROMs as well.

interestingly, in those days i had one of the rare Enterprise 128 computers, whose BASIC language came on a cartridge supplied with the machine. Other language cartridges were available, although i never got to try any. There was Forth and Lisp iirc. If you turned the computer on without a cartridge, you got a word processor!