Wanted: Amiga Assembly Books

[Hewitson]

Well I think its probably about time I pulled my finger out and moved on from coding useless things on the C64 to trying to do something productive on the Amiga.

I am in search of some assembly books. What I would really like is a couple of the Abacus books by Paul Overaa, but anything would be great to start with.

If anyone has anything they no longer want or need, please let me know.

Cheers

[dalton]

Some guy typed it long ago, here's the link: http://www.modermodemet.se/dalton/tut/amigamachine.lha

But if you're into demo coding, I wouldn't recommend that book. The "hardware reference manual" from Commodore, and Motorola's "programmers reference manual" are much better choices.

[NewDeli]

Not a book, but Red Sector assembled (no pun intended) a "Demo Maker", complete with editors, examples and instructions. You may pick it up from the EAB file server.

[BippyM]

Originally Posted by NewDeli

Not a book, but Red Sector assembled (no pun intended) a "Demo Maker", complete with editors, examples and instructions. You may pick it up from the EAB file server.

It's not programming, it's not a book, it's not going to teach asm programming or any other form of programming, and it's not relevant to this thread.

Remember the PM I sent you, if not go re-read it!

[Hewitson]

dalton: Thanks for the link, I do have that text file, however I'd really like a printed copy of the book. I intend on getting a copy of the HRM in the near future.

NewDeli: Thanks, but thats not quite what I'm after..

StingRay:

[NewDeli]

I thought I'd save the Op the trouble to read all this before making up his first Amiga demos (I assumed the "useless things" he coded on the C64 were mostly demos), sorry.

No worries bippym, I do have your PM and especially Graham's in mind (since it delves into things a bit deeper). That's so nice of you to give ol' Deli a second chance. You guys rock !

[BippyM]

Look just read the topic of a thread and determine if your answer is a solution to the question asked and not some way around it etc..

[Leffmann]

I know you're looking for books, but I think the M68K Family Programmer's Reference Manual is invaluable for anyone programming M68K assembly: http://tinyurl.com/2u3aflh

They used to send these out for free, but I don't think they're available in paper anymore.


Bippym, you're only disturbing the thread more than NewDeli is per your implication.

Lots of coders have used the TRSI demo maker as a source of inspiration, or as a means of learning by disassembling its demos, and I think this was implied in NewDeli's post, and in any case it was just a friendly suggestion.

[Allen1]

Hi there Hewitson,

there was a post by another member about 2 - 6 months ago about such books. I can't remember where I read it but it was on this site, I bookmarked the page with the books though here there are different programming books including Amiga Machine Language etc. There are some pretty good subjects and I wish I could recall who actually posted the information and all I can say is that it was good enough for me to bookmark so thanks M8

@bippym, hey man calm down, this is not the bippym I recognise from earlier posts and I don't think any malice was implied or intended by NewDeli. I don't know the history but I do know that we all make mistakes and upset the boat occasionally, such is life and realistically it makes a damn sight better reading than a plain functional instruction manual plus the fact that this is a forum for people to reply to, if no one is allowed to reply then what is the point.

[Herpes]

Hey Hewitson, I know you would like to obtain hard-copies, but if you want to browse a little bit check out the following link http://www.bombjack.org/commodore/amiga-books.htm
... at the top of the page you find a link to some abacus books. Maybe that helps your starting.

Cheers!

[Hewitson]

Those links are great until I find some actual books. Just to clarify I am willing to pay for them.

Thanks very much guys

[NewDeli]

680x0 Programming by Example by Stan Kelly-Bootle, published by Howard W. Sams might consist in an interesting read if you're experiencing difficulties finding Overaa's books at a reasonable price.
Quoted from another book :

This one is a good introduction for those who have done minor work in another assembler.
It contains brief, but very clear, summaries of 680x0 differences, addressing modes, and
instructions, and then goes on to a number of commented code examples.

[AlfaRomeo]

Originally Posted by Hewitson

I am in search of some assembly books. What I would really like is a couple of the Abacus books by Paul Overaa

Hope this helps..

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Mastering-Amig...item1c13fe67ae

[BippyM]

Have you seen the price

[AlfaRomeo]

Starting bid at £36.99

[Exile]

ill have a quick look around sure to have some lying around.

[Hewitson]

NewDeli: Thanks, I'm sure that would be a good read, but I'm really after something Amiga-specific (want to learn about opening/closing libs, windows, etc).

AlfaRomeo: Thanks, but that price is absolutely outrageous!

Exile: Thanks very much, that would be great

[NewDeli]

A little clarification wouldn't hurt at this point :
Amiga Machine Language was not written by Paul Overaa but by Stefan Dittrich.
It's old (I mean really old) and may not be the best book on the subject.
Paul Overaa books' publisher is Paragon Publishing (was Bruce Smith Books) which alas is long gone.

Now, I'd like to say a quick word about the content, even though I am not a coder or even an Amiga system specialist :
AFAIK Overaa's book first and foremost purpose is to teach you 68k ASM which at that, any good generic 68k book will do.
Concerning the Amiga specific stuff, you'd be hardly pressed to find lots of material about EXEC, Blitter... not covered in Hardware Ref. Manual & RKM : Libraries (both on Amazon, should you absolutely need a hard copy).

As I understand it :

• opening/closing libs -> working with libraries
• windows -> working with the user interface (Intuition)

Overaa's books seem great (there is a summary of the content of few of his books here), in the sense that all valuable information concerning programming the full range of Amigas is gathered into one volume, but IMHO you should be able to find most of what's covered elsewhere, perhaps slightly less brilliantly stated.

[Hewitson]

Dont recall anyone claiming Amiga Machine Language to be written by Overaa..

It may be an old book, and based on KS 1.x, but in my opinion those Abacus books are very good, and I think as a starting point you couldn't do much better.

Regarding 68k asm well I don't really need a boring introduction to that. I can work with the CPU without a problem, its the machine I don't know how to work with. I want a nice, printed book (not 500 printed pages stapled together) with examples on how to do basic things with the Workbench libraries.

[pmc]

Originally Posted by Hewitson

It may be an old book, and based on KS 1.x, but in my opinion those Abacus books are very good, and I think as a starting point you couldn't do much better.

I've got the Amiga Machine Language book. From what you're describing as your needs I don't think it would be much use to you really but each to their own as they say. It's very lightweight in my opinion and doesn't go into much detail about anything.

If you want an Abacus book to learn about the hardware you should try to pick up Amiga System Programmer's Guide which is a nice complement to the Hardware Reference Manual which is still all you really need if you're already comfortable with 68k asm.

The Abacus books are good but in my experience many of them only in parts. Also, be aware that there are plenty of mistakes in them - the chapter on line draw in the ASPG for example is riddled with typos and inaccurate information amongst the worthwhile material.