Spectrum Basic to AMOS 

Ahh pure amiga nostalgia..Amos was very slow..I had the voodoo amos 3d engine and Amos compiler which inspired me to code my own simple 3d engine. I had the zx81,bbc B,amiga 500,1200 and Pcs ever since. Blitzmax is my fav coding language, and still brill.

I started with Amos Professional as a kid, learned the hard way, fought through the book. In the end, I made cool games with it. The GUI is great, the LIBs are great, but it was still just BASIC, slow. Bought the compiler later. It did a good job (was not always working, but mostly), so yeah, it was OK for a young kid to go into Amiga programming.

Yep, I had both the Blockbusters game and the Currah Speech synthesiser. The advantage of having the Currah on a 48k Speccy was that the cartridge has passthrough to send the 48k beeps to the TV as the speech went to the TV only due to using a custom speech chip.

I started with Spectrum Basic, and moved on to C64 basic, and Amos Basic., then Visual Basic, then Dark Basic, and Dark Basic Pro. Now I'm working with Unity, and Unreal Engine. I had these magazines too. I also became a graphic designer for the Amiga, and onwards, and worked on some games for Arc Developments in Walsall, and we made games for Activision, Konami, Aclaim and Thalamus. I'm currently working on my first VR game, and I find that even more fun than regular games, because you can draw something, and model it, then in about an hour hold it in your hand, throw it, or shoot it.

very interesting! It would be awesome if someday someone created some kind of "zx spectrum basic compiler" for Amiga computers! Obviously a Spectrum emulator for Amiga can fulfill the same function but it would still be very interesting to see these old BASIC codes being executed in an Amiga computer through interpretation and not emulation!

That's a nice video! The only thing which bugged me was the appeal to watch to the end, it might just be me but when someone tries to convince me my natural response is "No!" Aside from this, great! Thanks

This is brilliant. One of your best videos yet. I've been tempted with converted a few Spectrum type-ins into AMOS in the past, but with one thing and another I've not got around to it. This could be the video that gives me the nudge I need. It would be a lot of fun to improve on the original Spectrum version now you have it running on the Amiga - nice title screen, music, proper graphics. The game is there so it would now be a case of making it look and sound more like an Amiga game. I hope you're planning on bringing this along to the next SWAG event. I'd love to have a go!

AMOS is a very nice programming language that reminds me Turbo Pascal on Windows. Good for beginners to learn coding.. Complete IDE make everything easier.

In the Spectrum version where it draws the 'walls' the Spectrum used PLOT to move to the start position then DRAW to draw the line. You continued to use PLOT in the AMOS version even though it's no longer needed which would slow the program down a bit if you were needing the speed, not too much of a problem here as you are pausing anyway to slow it down. Because DRAW in AMOS expects start and end coordinates there is no need to use plot to move to the start. Alternatively if you want to keep the PLOT, DRAW in AMOS can leave out the start coordinates to function like the Spectrum DRAW command. In your case just use Draw To J+10, H-10 Also, why use a procedure for MAINGAME when it's the next code to be run anyway? Take out the MAINGAME line under INITIALISE, take out the Procedure definition line and its matching End Proc. The code will jump to INITIALISE on that line then return to continue with the main game loop. No need to make the main game loop a procedure as it never ends. BTW I used to program in STOS (Yes, I was an ST guy after my Speccy) which AMOS is based on and went on to program professionally in C/C++ after starting to learn C on my ST then moved over to PC before getting qualified in C programming. One boss fired me for learning C on the job, which he gave me permission to do if I had nothing else to do. He returned with a customer for a meeting and I had done all my tasks set for that morning so I was doing some C programming. He asked me why I was doing that instead of work to which I replied "You said I could if I had nothing else to do!". He responded to that by asking why I did not ask him for more work. I replied "because you were with a client and it would have been rude for me to interrupt the meeting!", he fired me anyway citing I was playing games the other day anyway. I was not, I was trying to reproduce their logo for a fax header which his partner knew all about. He thought Paint in Windows 2 was a game because it was graphical! Yep, it was that far back, before Windows 3. Now look where we are with Windows, I wish I could rub it in his face now! LOL

hi. i think levels are „up” (harder) because it’s harder to build another wall in the spectrum version. this was fun. i’ve learned something about amos i never approached in my amiga years.

amos was great then again so was the amiga we used to code doors on amos for max's bbs

Sorry about this... In AMOS you don't need the plot before the draw command, but you do on the Spectrum. (I have got these confused in the past too. LOL) You could use the AMOS PLAY command to replace the Speccy's BEEP. Nice conversion. Happy Christmas. 🎄

Does AMOS allow you to redefine characters like Spectrum BASIC does? Thanks

Ooh. An annoyance of mine is when people put a SPACE after the line number or between keywords in a line when programing the Speccy. It's not needed and it takes up memory. (Sorry, I have a bit of OCD when it comes to Spectrums. LOL).

13 in 1984? 56 years old? Methinks more likely 52 !! Name sounds remotely familiar.... wonder if he'll make himself known on here eventually? Would be interesting to find out what he's been up to in the intervening 39 years and 3 months!!

Brush up on your maths skills! 😉 If Philip was 13 in 1984 that would make him 52 not 56! I know because I was 14 in 1984 making me 53 now (Until March). 😛

Carry on Coding 😂😂😂😂 (Sid James laugh)