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AppGameKit Classic Chat / CBATNAM (Capn Bubba And The Nasty Alien Menace) AMOS-List... anyone?

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GarBenjamin
AGK Developer
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Joined: 30th Nov 2016
Location: USA
Posted: 3rd Apr 2018 19:42 Edited at: 3rd Apr 2018 21:10
I was just wondering if anyone here was programming in AMOS on the Amiga long ago and part of the AMOS-List community? This would have been about 20 to 25 years ago. I remember an Alistair Murray, Braneloc (aka my friend Keith), Rev Giark, Ben Wyatt, Adam Parrot and several others from that time long ago.

At one point we did a community game project CBATNAM ... Capn Bubba And The Nasty Alien Menace. Each person that participated created one level of the project and they were all distinct. Like I made a side scrolling shmup, Keith made a Space Harrier style shmup level. Someone even worked on a real 3D level although I am not sure they ever got it running at a proper speed.

We also had another community project where many of us contributed optimization tips for getting max performance out of AMOS although mine tended to be generic for anything IIRC. Basically focusing on thinking why is this slow and understanding what is really happening behind the scenes. I think I used a 2D array access as an example. Anyway someone I think Ben Wyatt compiled them all and uploaded to someplace... possibly Aminet.

Anyway... does anyone here remember this? Were any of you there so many years ago?
TI/994a (BASIC) -> C64 (BASIC/PASCAL/ASM/Others) -> Amiga (AMOS/BLITZ/ASM/C/Gamesmith) -> DOS (C/C++/Allegro) -> Windows (C++/C#/Monkey X/GL Basic/Unity/Others)
fubarpk
Retired Moderator
19
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Joined: 11th Jan 2005
Playing: AGK is my friend
Posted: 3rd Apr 2018 22:24
Never used AMOS but I did make a few games in STOS like one I made was a high speed side scrolling platformer lol looked and worked great
just was boring as ...... lol My friend who helped with the art back then could look at a photo and recreate it pixel by pixel overnight, the above
mentioned scroller had a great bike in it. Really wish I could find all that old graphics, I had an STE so all my old discs if they still worked would
easily be read by a pc
fubar
shadey
14
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Joined: 25th Jan 2010
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Posted: 4th Apr 2018 18:24
I used both amos and stos back in the day, coded a lottery predictor in it,of all things, sold to to F1 licenseware, but alas.. then the amiga and st scene died.
Hail to the king, baby!
Rick Nasher
6
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Location: Amsterdam
Posted: 6th Apr 2018 19:16
On the Amiga I started off with AMOS, which also had some 3d stuff, but pretty soon went over to BlitzBasic, which had some features that I preferred at the time(real exe compilation, interrupts and speed I believe). AmigaBasic, had some nice features, but was largely ignored due to it being too slow and limited gfx features(thanks to MS?). Prior to this I coded on the Aquarius, C16 & C64.

When Commodore went bust, I realized the platform wouldn't be a viable game coding platform anymore, so put my indie coding ambitions on ice. Meanwhile experimented with VB6+gameing libraries and MSSQL database coding using ASP. After a long time I found Blitz3D came out for PC, but was late to the party so this was aging already a bit and then it's creator made the weird move to never ever create what his fan base faithfully longed for: Blitz3D V2.

Thanks to TGC that wait is over. So now building some stuff to help me get to grips with the language and share to help beginners understand how things are done so more people can benefit from AGK.

Pretty happy so far. Currently investigating networking multiplayer capabilities. Who knows can come up with something nice.


puzzler2018
User Banned
Posted: 6th Apr 2018 19:30
Wow AMOS - I was programming in that when I was a wee nipper - that must have been near on 25 years ago - jeeze im feeling old

GarBenjamin
AGK Developer
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Joined: 30th Nov 2016
Location: USA
Posted: 6th Apr 2018 19:57 Edited at: 6th Apr 2018 19:57
That is not age in a bad way puzzler that is experience. I look at it like an rpg. Everyone knows the wizard will be more powerful when he hits level 50 than he was at level 25. My last girlfriend got me a great t shirt for my birthday a couple of years ago..

I Don't Get Older
[Experience bar graphic]
I LEVEL UP!

Perfectly matches my view. Lol Wearing it now in fact.
TI/994a (BASIC) -> C64 (BASIC/PASCAL/ASM/Others) -> Amiga (AMOS/BLITZ/ASM/C/Gamesmith) -> DOS (C/C++/Allegro) -> Windows (C++/C#/Monkey X/GL Basic/Unity/Others)
SpecTre
Developer
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Joined: 24th Feb 2003
Location: UK
Posted: 6th Apr 2018 20:16
Yes used AMOS and STOS back in the day. Had a decent set up in my bedroom at the time from what I can remember with an Atari ST and Amiga sat side by side with 2 TV's for coding.
Did a few things on the AMOS PD side with demos, games and utilities. Found this full list of AMOS PD titles here:

http://www.amiga-stuff.com/pd/amospd.html

Good memories to look back on, can see mine searching for my name Paul Harthen.
Can anyone else see any they did?

Also did some education titles using Amos and STOS for Prisma Software many moons ago:

http://hol.abime.net/hol_search.php?N_ref_artist=5603

Might have to look in the loft for them as think still got the boxed software, haha!


AMOS was great though and I think that's why I started using Dark Basic and AppGameKit as they remind me of it in some ways.

Very cool @GarBenjamin bringing those memories back Right might go and watch From Bedrooms To Billionaires now haha!
GarBenjamin
AGK Developer
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Joined: 30th Nov 2016
Location: USA
Posted: 6th Apr 2018 20:57 Edited at: 6th Apr 2018 21:16
I have found YT videos of 3 of my old Amiga games from late 90s so far. I have looked many times for Bomb Maniac but have not found it. Nothing will be out there before 97 I think as didn't have Internet before then. In 97 finally got on super slow modem. Maybe 96 but I think was 97.

However, in my garage I still have my old CD32-based Amiga (second one that I bought used from a fella working at radio shack after my Amiga 600 got fried) and huge collection of hardshell disks from my own work, magazine coverdisks, commercial games etc.

Also still have my old books such as this batch...


I always figure one day when I retire I will see if any of it still works.
TI/994a (BASIC) -> C64 (BASIC/PASCAL/ASM/Others) -> Amiga (AMOS/BLITZ/ASM/C/Gamesmith) -> DOS (C/C++/Allegro) -> Windows (C++/C#/Monkey X/GL Basic/Unity/Others)
SpecTre
Developer
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Joined: 24th Feb 2003
Location: UK
Posted: 6th Apr 2018 23:38
@GarBenjamin Thats cool, C64 too, thats another blast from the past that I had
Rick Nasher
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Location: Amsterdam
Posted: 7th Apr 2018 00:13 Edited at: 7th Apr 2018 00:27
Trip down to memory lane, still have this somewhere lingering round:


I had an A500, which I sold in favor of the A1200. Later I also had an A600 of which I was quite fond as I got from a fellow at work for a very good price. I'd still have it, if wasn't for my dad lending it to his, at the time wanna-be-writer, crazy girlfriend, with who'm he had a very nasty breakup. (no speaking terms)

I now still have like 2-3 C64's (old+new style) and 2 C16's + a couple of datasette's and drives. Not sure if all are in working condition though. Plus the A1200 which I equipped with an SD card drive in place of the HD, which is working pretty good.

Almost forgot: I coded in Forth on the C16 which I got out of a magazine and was amazed by the language's simplicity: you created new commands called words, which then became part of the language itself. Did pong in that and some other fun things. It was also very speedy, which was impressive and used by NASA on Amiga's to control the SpaceShuttle.
GarBenjamin
AGK Developer
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Location: USA
Posted: 7th Apr 2018 00:28 Edited at: 7th Apr 2018 01:32
This ended up being a very interesting thread.

Did you know there are new Indie devs making new games for these machines? There is a company Protovision or something like that making (and publishing other devs) games for the C64 for example.












People are doing it for the speccy, Amiga, NES, Genesis, Atari 2600, etc too.

Very cool stuff.

Last year I downloaded a program named CBM PRG Studio (something like that... I'd have to look at again on my laptop to be sure) on my Windows laptop and made the first C64 Assembly language program I have made since about 25 years ago. It was awesome to see it run on Vice or whatever that emulator was I used. I was amazed I stiill remembered the starting address of the screen buffer but that is just how much I was into it long ago. Lol
TI/994a (BASIC) -> C64 (BASIC/PASCAL/ASM/Others) -> Amiga (AMOS/BLITZ/ASM/C/Gamesmith) -> DOS (C/C++/Allegro) -> Windows (C++/C#/Monkey X/GL Basic/Unity/Others)
GarBenjamin
AGK Developer
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Years of Service
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Joined: 30th Nov 2016
Location: USA
Posted: 7th Apr 2018 05:05 Edited at: 7th Apr 2018 05:13
I've been thinking about these classic style games even more than usual this past week because I've been wanting to do an ultra low res game for quite a while. I made two in 256x144 resolution back in 2016 but I want to drop way down.

One thing I have been thinking there is no reason to have to keep the pixel scale the same ratio like 5:5 (256x144 scale up to a 1280x720 full screen resolution by scaling 5x on both width and height).

So this mockup I made a bit ago is what I think I will target... 128x90 which is a 10:8 scale factor.

The caption here should be... uh oh! Better hurry! It's getting dark and they come out at night.


Tomorrow I will do some more work on the shmup template and wrap it up. It is done but I want to go over the code one more time see if some extra comments might be good to add, etc.
TI/994a (BASIC) -> C64 (BASIC/PASCAL/ASM/Others) -> Amiga (AMOS/BLITZ/ASM/C/Gamesmith) -> DOS (C/C++/Allegro) -> Windows (C++/C#/Monkey X/GL Basic/Unity/Others)
fubarpk
Retired Moderator
19
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Joined: 11th Jan 2005
Playing: AGK is my friend
Posted: 7th Apr 2018 10:29
Old Retro games are still quite popular and many remakes are still made and do very well

Emulation software helps bring allot of these alive i personally have followed M.A.M.E for its support of old arcade game
and have recently purchased a pi computer https://retropie.org.uk/ with the emulation software i have installed on
one sd card i have almost 100,000 games emulated from many different systems a list of supported gaming systems can be
found here if anyone interested https://github.com/retropie/retropie-setup/wiki/Supported-Systems with new
systems being added allo the time. Proving that old retro games are very much still alive and so are the systems. Pi isnt
the only computer available that supports many systems there are allot of others mostly nintendo based and not as cheap as the Pi.

fubar
SpecTre
Developer
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Joined: 24th Feb 2003
Location: UK
Posted: 7th Apr 2018 10:59
Retro gaming is a big thing right now and very cool. I subscribe and get Retro Gamer magazine every month and it's a great read.

https://www.retrogamer.net
Kevin Picone
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Location: Australia
Posted: 7th Apr 2018 11:07
wow.. Sam's Journey looks like excellent game.. regardless of fact it's on a C64.. wow..

PlayBASIC To HTML5/WEB - Convert PlayBASIC To Machine Code
Cliff Mellangard 3DEGS
Developer
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Joined: 20th Feb 2006
Location: Sweden
Posted: 7th Apr 2018 15:58
Sam's Journey makes it Worth to get the new c64 mini and run it from usb flash there .....
GarBenjamin
AGK Developer
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Location: USA
Posted: 7th Apr 2018 18:54 Edited at: 7th Apr 2018 20:13
Definitely @fubarpk and @SpecTre! I am a retro gamer!

Although I don't have a c64 I am going to get a c64 mini very soon. Have watched a few YT videos on it ever since I heard about it. I have an NES and Genesis that I play games on and play a lot of retro games on my laptop.

I do like some modern games but honestly I'm just not into all of this superficial flashy crap they put in modern AAA games. The first few times it was cool quite awesome even! But damn they have been doing it for decades now. And honestly, if I want to watch a movie I will put a movie in. If I want the most realistic graphics possible I will shut off the computer and game consoles and walk out my front door.

This is why I am a big supporter of tiny Indie game developers. I feel these developers put more focus on gameplay at least as far as a ratio goes instead of focusing obsessively on superficial movie-like foolishness and over the top lighting and cinematography and so forth. I mean it is cool in its own way but like I said this is just about all games now so give me something different. And that something different is tiny weird Indie games that often look like games from decades ago.

I used to play games all the time at game-oldies.com which is quite awesome. Can check out hundreds of games (maybe thousands) across different old machines but the past years I play a lot of games at gamejolt and itch.io and I do play games from Steam as well.

I just play a lot of different tiny games at various places so any one game I don't put more than an hour or two on generally. My steam library is filled with retro style games so should be easy to see what I like. Lol

My Steam Library and my Steam Wishlist.

The vast majority of the 200+ games in my Steam library are retro style games.

I just played a little Rush to Adventure (made by one of our devs here) and ORCS earlier today. Of course AppGameKit is the most used thing in my library. Like I said I don't spend huge amounts of time on game development either I tend to work in tiny very focused sessions 20 minutes up to maybe 90 minutes or more some nights but I often take 2 to 3 nights off and do nothing. But anyway just saying I still find game dev to be the ultimate game for me.
TI/994a (BASIC) -> C64 (BASIC/PASCAL/ASM/Others) -> Amiga (AMOS/BLITZ/ASM/C/Gamesmith) -> DOS (C/C++/Allegro) -> Windows (C++/C#/Monkey X/GL Basic/Unity/Others)
SpecTre
Developer
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Joined: 24th Feb 2003
Location: UK
Posted: 8th Apr 2018 16:40
@GarBenjamin I am totally with you on the Retro Game side of things as I love playing all the old stuff rather than these new AAA games.
Great find there with that Game Oldies site, not seen that before

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