Internet Link Exchange
Member of the Internet Link Exchange

Amos Pro bar

INTRODUCTION:

There are not many places on the Net, or anywhere else for that matter, that deals with Amos related software and/or links. We hope to put that right soon.
This page will grow slowly, but surely.

F1 Software has always been linked with Amos. There are some good reasons for this. Firstly, there is me, Steve bye. I have always liked and used Amos so naturally have an interest in it, this is why F1 has most of the best Amos extensions for sale. Many of our titles are written in Amos, F1 onced produced AmosZine, one of the better Amos disk mags, F1 are the only licensed vendor of the Amos Pro Compiler, I edited the Amos column for Amiga Shopper for three seasons and have released a few Amos written utils, a game (Punter) and a beginners guide to Amos. I think that's enough reasons, don't you?


A VERY BRIEF HISTORY OF AMOS

Amos's roots trace back to the Atari S.T with STOS, at the time STOS was the most advanced, friendly and easy to use BASIC that had ever been released. STOS released by French soft-co Mandarin was supported briefly but as soon as the ST market took a turn for the worse support for the product vanished. AMOS, the Amiga version, was then released by Europress Software. STOS was completely ignored and programmers were left high & dry, myself included. Amos did very well on the Amiga and more Amos products and upgrades followed, including the Amos Compiler, Easy Amos (a complete waste), Amos Professional (the king of Amos) & Pro Compiler. Of course it wasn't long before the Amiga market also took a turn for the worse, suddenly there were no more updates, and zero support. No prizes for guessing where Mr Lionet went, the P.C of course.

The thought of PCOS (Amos for the PC) was exciting though so many Amos users patiently waited and dreamed of buying a PC and PCOS and converting all their source and making huge wads of money into the bargain. The dream of dual platform Amos releases was really cool. Until one day Europress Software let the world know that Lionets next product would be 'Click 'N' Play' a GUI games creator. Strange, we all thought, must be a BASIC? Alas no. Lionet has left all that behind him to concentrate on what is the PC equivalent of The Shoot-Em-Up-Construction Kit (albeit a lot more versatile). Click 'n' Create is now out and one can only hope that Francois now gets the urge to write PCOS, well we can live in hope, can't we? One can only surmise that Lionet or Europress must think PC owners are not intelligent enough to learn BASIC, or more likely that a small outfit like Europress (compared to MicroSoft that is) wouldn't stand a chance of beating the PC's premier BASIC, Visual Basic. Personally I think the PC is crying out for an Amos clone. Visual Basic costs a bomb for the Pro version and the other BASIC'S on offer are slightly crap to say the least. If I sound a little bitter, I am not, I am upset that the great potential Amos Pro had has been lost. If only it had been upgraded to AGA with proper Intuition support and decent screen modes and real multitasking (and a lot of bug fixes of course) we would of been sitting pretty at least until the next generation of Amiga's come out, if they ever do? Still, all is not lost because luckily Amos can accept extension commands to add all these features, it is not quite as good as having them built into the system, but it is better than nothing.


AMOS PRODUCTS SOLD BY F1:

The Amos Pro Compiler
The Intuition Extension
The AGA Extension
J-Windows Extension
Dialog Procedures
Image Compressor
Amos Beginners Guide
AmosZine disk magazine
Mal's Map editor

All the above titles are detailed fully in The F1 catalogue disk


AMOS ARTICLES:

As I mentioned earlier I used to write the Amos column for Amiga Shopper.
Some of the articles I wrote are now my copyright again thanks to Future Publishings generous contract. When I have time I will convert the more interesting articles to HTML and put them on this page for you, but for now here are a few golden oldies to be getting on with.

Using AGA without an Extension
Storing executables inside Amos
Did you know?
Improving Amos

On my last Amos stint for Amiga Shopping Trolley (as I like to call it) I teamed up with ace coder and professional graphic artist Malcolm Lavery, and he wrote a great little Lottery Predictor, it is quite impressive.

Lotto screenshot

you can download the source for Lotto if you want.


AMOS LINKS:

It's Pretty sad, but this is all I can find at the moment

Programs & Tips
Aminet Amos Dir
Extreme Amos + other Amos stuff


FURTHER INFO:

Don't forget you can subscribe to the Amos List and get all the latest Amos news, hints,tips, problem solving, routines etc. For free by sending an email with the line:

SUBSCRIBE 'your e-mail address'

contained in the body of the message to amos-request@access.digex.net


I have lumped together a load of useful messages from the list that you may want to download, the text is archived in LHA and the archive is about 19K. Download archive
Here is a small but neat piece of code sent in to us by one of our customers, Stephen Orr. It is called TP Cruncher and is is the cleanest, simplest DMS front-end I have ever seen. Obviously it needs a lot more features added to it and support for LHA/LZX at least. For AmosPro only as it uses Interface commands. Thanks Stephen.

Download source 3K lha format


There is an AMOS Newsgroup alt.religion.amos I think, but because of the stupid name peple shy away from it or don`t realise what it is.
There used to be a FIDO echo though, I haven't used BBS for about a year now so I am out of touch.


AMOS BOOKS:

AMOS IN ACTION by Len Tucker (KUMA)
AMIGA GAME MAKER'S MANUAL by Stephen Hill. (SIGMA)
ULTIMATE AMOS by Jason Holborn. (Future)

AMOS CD:

A CD-Rom full of Amos source and other goodies has been available for a couple of years now. It is worth getting, esp if you are a beginner. Try contacting any UK PD library for a copy. It is worth shopping around and Saddletramps PD normally offer a good deal.
MORE AMOS GOODIES TO COME WHEN THIS PAGE IS NEXT UPDATED
Please let me know of any Amos links you know about not listed here.

If you have an Amos article you want put on this page to share with other users I would be only too pleased to bung it on here. Space is limited though, email.


PROGRAMERS INFO | AMIGA LINKS | F1 HOME PAGE


Amiga
Member of the Amiga Web Network.