AMOS BASIC is a dialect of the

BASIC Basic or BASIC may refer to: Science and technology * BASIC, a computer programming language * Basic (chemistry), having the properties of a base * Basic access authentication, in HTTP Entertainment * Basic (film), ''Basic'' (film), a 2003 film ...

programming language A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Programming languages are described in terms of their Syntax (programming languages), syntax (form) and semantics (computer science), semantics (meaning), usually def ...

for the

Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers produced by Commodore International, Commodore from 1985 until the company's bankruptcy in 1994, with production by others afterward. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16-b ...

computer. Following on from the successful

STOS BASIC STOS BASIC is a dialect of the BASIC programming language for the Atari ST personal computer. It was designed for creating games, but the set of high-level graphics and sound commands it offers is suitable for developing multimedia software withou ...

for the

Atari ST Atari ST is a line of personal computers from Atari Corporation and the successor to the company's Atari 8-bit computers, 8-bit computers. The initial model, the Atari 520ST, had limited release in April–June 1985, and was widely available i ...

, AMOS BASIC was written for the Amiga by

François Lionet François Lionet is a French programmer, best known for having written STOS BASIC on the Atari ST and AMOS BASIC on the Amiga (along with Constantin Sotiropoulos). He has also written several games on these platforms. In 1994, he founded Click ...

with

Constantin Sotiropoulos Constantin Sotiropoulos is the co-creator (with François Lionet) of AMOS BASIC, a popular video game and multimedia programming language for the Amiga computer, and STOS BASIC on the Atari ST. He has also been creator of copy protection software f ...

and published by

Europress Software Europress was a British magazine and software publisher based in Adlington, Cheshire, Adlington, near Macclesfield, Cheshire. Their magazine publishing business was previously known as Database Publications. The software division was renamed in 19 ...

in 1990. The language was notable for its focus on media and game development capabilities, allowing users to easily create demanding multimedia software and games. It featured full structured code and numerous high-level functions for loading and manipulating images, animations, and sounds. These capabilities made it a popular choice among Amiga enthusiasts, particularly beginners, for creating video games (especially

platformer A platformer (also called a platform game, and sometimes a jump 'n' run game) is a subgenre of action game in which the core objective is to move the player character between points in an environment. Platform games are characterized by levels wi ...

s and graphical adventures), multimedia applications, and educational software.

History

AMOS competed on the Amiga platform with Acid Software's

Blitz BASIC Blitz BASIC is the programming language dialect of the first Blitz compilers, devised by New Zealand–based developer Mark Sibly. Being derived from BASIC, Blitz syntax was designed to be easy to pick up for beginners first learning to program. ...

. Both BASICs differed from other dialects on different platforms, in that they allowed the easy creation of fairly demanding multimedia software, with full structured code and many high-level functions to load images, animations, sounds and display them in various ways. The original AMOS was a

BASIC interpreter A BASIC interpreter is an Interpreter (computing), interpreter that enables users to enter and run programs in the BASIC programming language, language and was, for the first part of the microcomputer era, the default Application software, applica ...

which, whilst working fine, suffered the same disadvantages of any language being run interpretively. By all accounts, AMOS was extremely fast among interpreted languages, being speedy enough that an extension called AMOS 3D could produce playable 3D games even on plain 7 MHz 68000 Amigas. Later, an AMOS

compiler In computing, a compiler is a computer program that Translator (computing), translates computer code written in one programming language (the ''source'' language) into another language (the ''target'' language). The name "compiler" is primaril ...

was developed that further increased speed. AMOS could also run

MC68000 The Motorola 68000 (sometimes shortened to Motorola 68k or m68k and usually pronounced "sixty-eight-thousand") is a 16/32-bit complex instruction set computer (CISC) microprocessor, introduced in 1979 by Motorola Semiconductor Products Sector ...

machine code, loaded into a program's memory banks. To simplify animation of sprites, AMOS included the AMOS Animation Language (AMAL), a compiled sprite scripting language which runs independently of the main AMOS BASIC program. It was also possible to control screen and "rainbow" effects using AMAL scripts. AMAL scripts in effect created CopperLists, small routines executed by the Amiga's Agnus chip. After the original version of AMOS, Europress released a compiler (AMOS Compiler), and two other versions of the language: Easy AMOS, a simpler version for beginners, and AMOS Professional, a more advanced version with added features, such as a better

integrated development environment An integrated development environment (IDE) is a Application software, software application that provides comprehensive facilities for software development. An IDE normally consists of at least a source-code editor, build automation tools, an ...

ARexx ARexx is a Rexx interpreter for Amiga, written in 1987 by William S. Hawes, with a number of Amiga-specific features beyond standard Rexx. An ARexx script can communicate with software that implements an ''ARexx port''. An Amiga application can ...

support, a new

user interface In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine fro ...

API and new flow control constructs. Neither of these new versions was significantly more popular than the original AMOS. AMOS was used mostly to make multimedia software,

video game A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual fe ...

s (platformers and graphical adventures) and educational software. The language was mildly successful within the Amiga community. Its ease of use made it especially attractive to beginners. One of AMOS BASIC's disadvantages, stemming from its

lineage, was its incompatibility with the Amiga's

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...

functions and interfaces. Instead, AMOS BASIC controlled the computer directly, which caused programs written in it to have a non-standard user interface, and also caused compatibility problems with newer versions of hardware. Today, the language has declined in popularity along with the Amiga computer for which it was written. Despite this, a small community of enthusiasts are still using it. The

source code In computing, source code, or simply code or source, is a plain text computer program written in a programming language. A programmer writes the human readable source code to control the behavior of a computer. Since a computer, at base, only ...

to AMOS was released around 2001 under a BSD style license by

Clickteam Clickteam is a French software development company based in Boulogne-Billancourt, Hauts-de-Seine. Founded by Francis Poulain, François Lionet and Yves Lamoureux, Clickteam is best known for the creation of Clickteam Fusion, a script-free progr ...

, a company that includes the original programmer.

Software

Software written using AMOS BASIC includes: * '' AQUABYSS'' by ''Aged Code'', is a 2022

strategy Strategy (from Greek στρατηγία ''stratēgia'', "troop leadership; office of general, command, generalship") is a general plan to achieve one or more long-term or overall goals under conditions of uncertainty. In the sense of the " a ...

trading game for the

* ''

Miggybyte ''Miggybyte'' was a free disk-based magazine for the Amiga range of computers, published by Pickled Fish Software and edited by Ben Gaunt. From 1995 to 1997 twelve issues were published all being on a single floppy disk only. The magazine was i ...

'' * ''

Scorched Tanks ''Scorched Tanks'' is an artillery style game released for the Amiga platform in 1994. The game is inspired by the MS-DOS game ''Scorched Earth'' (1991). Gameplay Between two and four human and computer-controlled opponents each control one st ...

'' * Games by

Vulcan Software Vulcan Software was an independent computer games company founded in 1994 in the UK. Vulcan started creating software for the Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers produced by Commodore International, Commodore from 1985 until the ...

, amongst which was the ''

Valhalla In Norse mythology, Valhalla ( , ; , )Orchard (1997:171–172) is described as a majestic hall located in Asgard and presided over by the god Odin. There were five possible realms the soul could travel to after death. The first was Fólkvang ...

'' trilogy * Amiga version of ''

Ultimate Domain ''Ultimate Domain'', known as ''Genesia'' in Europe, is a video game developed by Microïds and published by Mindscape initially on the Amiga in 1993 and then ported for the IBM PC in 1994. The original Amiga version is known to be one of the f ...

'' (called '' Genesia'') by

Microïds Microids (formerly Microïds) is a French video game developer and publisher based in Paris. Founded in 1985 by Elliot Grassiano, it attained early success with games published through Loriciel in France and other partners (including Activisio ...

* ''

Flight of the Amazon Queen ''Flight of the Amazon Queen'' is a graphical point-and-click adventure game by Interactive Binary Illusions, originally released in 1995 for Amiga and MS-DOS. The game was re-released as freeware in 2004 for use with ScummVM. In January 2022, a ...

'', by Interactive Binary Illusions * '' Extreme Violence'', included on an ''

Amiga Power ''Amiga Power'' (''AP'') was a monthly magazine about Amiga video games. It was published in the United Kingdom by Future Publishing and ran for 65 issues, from May 1991 to September 1996. History The first issue of ''Amiga Power'' was publi ...

'' cover disk * '' Jetstrike'', a commercial game by Rasputin Software * '' Black Dawn'', a 1993 game for the

personal computer

References

External links

Source code for AMOS and STOS

The AMOS Factory
(an AMOS support/community site)
History of STOS and AMOS
how they came to be published in the UK {{BASIC BASIC programming language family Video game development software Amiga development software Software using the BSD license Programming languages created in 1990