Orchid XP v8 wrote:

> And then there was AMOS (AMiga OS). I forget how many different editions 
> were produced - AMOS, Easy AMOS, AMOS Professional, etc. In spite of the 
> name, it wasn't actually an OS at all. It was a a programming language.
> 
> When you buy AMOS Professional, what you get is
> 
> - An interpretter for the AMOS language.
> - An extensive IDE.
> - A set of multimedia tools inclusing almost everything but the kitchen 
> sink, *all* written in AMOS itself.
> - No less than *seven disks* stacked full of multimedia files and demo 
> programs.
> 
> Technically, AMOS is just another dialect of BASIC. It doesn't have line 
> numbers, does have GOTO and GOSUB, and has procedures and functions, 
> uses "$" and "#" to distinguish variable datatypes, and IIRC has local 
> variables if you want them. The core language is no more powerful than 
> that.
> 
> However, it has VERY strong multimedia capabilities. If you imagine the 
> most feature-encrusted lump of software possible, AMOS was like that, 
> but with bells on.

...so basically, AMOS was a programming language that utterly *sucked*, 
together with an absolutely kick-arse set of multimedia tools and with 
killer easy of use. Kind of like VB I guess...

At the time, BASIC was the most powerful programming language I knew. 
And boy did I love AMOS! Never got a huge amount *done* with it, but I 
spent countless hours tinkering. Looking back on it, it truly was the 
most feature-encrusted lump of lead imaginable! Occasionally it would 
even malfunction slightly - nearly unheard of for commercial software. 
(In fairness, it worked better once I got a harddrive.)

I do still sometimes miss the flexibility of just being able to say 
"PLOT 7, 3, 11" and write a pixel to the screen. It's *way* more 
complicated than that these days. Kinda puts you off writing anything 
graphical...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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