Lately I have this urge to program a lot and I have to admit I do seem to do a bit each day. As far as programming goes I seem to get a lot done lately and more importantly I learned a lot. The other day I though I would have a quick crack at a file requester and as you can see from the picture below I succeeded. I was actually surprised how quick I got it up and running. It just displays the requester and does not do anything else. But that was exactly what I wanted. I will work it out further at a later time so it will actually do something.
The reason I wanted to try creating a File Requester is because I would need one for my Amiga Editor project. I have been working on that project for the last couple of days and will write about this in a different article.
Finally I have my Mastering Amiga C book back. My wife’s parents arrived a couple of days ago and brought the book with them. I still need my Amos Professional manual and Mastering Amiga Amos but due to a lack of space only one book could make it so I picked the Mastering Amiga C book. My wife’s brother will also pay us a visit later this year and he should bring the other two books. But for now I will have a great time reading the Mastering Amiga C book.
I was really surprised when I came across the game Cliffhanger for the Amiga. This is, can’t recall I ever did, the first time I saw it and I had no idea this game was made for the Amiga. I am always excited about new games I never knew existed. I played it a bit and it’s not that bad but it has not excited me that much yet. I guess I need to play it a bit more. It did get me excited to go out and look for other Amiga movie titles. I guess I played most of them but still it might be fun to play some again or come across some games I never played before.
When I was back in Thailand for a holiday in 2011 I wanted to bring back a lot that we left there when we moved to Holland in 2005. At first I wanted to bring back my Amos Professional manual but at the last moment I decided not to bring it and made room for something else. I wish I did bring it because when I have one of my Amos flashback moments I want to read it it. I did believe I brought it back since why would I leave such a book in Thailand? But I did leave it there.
Another gem I left there was the “Mastering Amiga C” book. My issue with this book is that I hate it and love it. I want to have it when I don’t and don’t want it when I have. And of course now I want it. And the good news is that I will have both of them soon. My wife’s parents are coming to visit us for a holiday so I will have them bring it with them. All our stuff we left there is stored with them. I just hope they will be able to find it. At least I got the pictures of the books so it should be no problem for them to find it.
I am pretty sure that I also have left “Mastering Amiga Amos” in Thailand. If so it would be a great addition to the other two gems. I want to do some more stuff with Amos so both the manual and this book would be helping me a lot in this.
With the Amiga 1200 being hooked up to my home network and having had the opportunity to test it (and finding out it works wonderful) it is time to get started on my disk magazine project. Since I am going to use Amos Professional I really need to get back in to the world of Amos programming. I already installed Amos Professional on my Amiga 1200. Now I really regret I did not bring my Amos books and other reading material with me from Thailand last year.
But I still have some reading material here so I should not worry so much. My plan is to have my mother in-law ship the Amos Pro manual and also the Mastering Amiga Amos book to me. Spending time on Amos really brings back some great memories. There is really something special about Amos. Just reading the Amos The Creator manual or fire up some Amos disk magazines has me all emotional. I really miss those days.
I have also started work on my next OS4.x programming article in case you are wondering if I am still continuing with that. It could still take a bit before it is done but I will really do my best to get it done as soon as possible. In the next article I will explore the world of IDCMP. One problem I have now since I moved upstairs is that I don’t have any network access on my A1SE. I can’t get the cable upstairs to give it access to my network. And the network is the only way I can transfer files since the USB does not work on my A1SE. The only solution would be to use a repeater with a LAN connection port connected to my wireless router downstairs. I would plug the A1SE in to that LAN port so it has network access.
Elbox 1200 4MB with clock
After installing the disk image device software I suddenly could not run my EasyNet software together with AmiTFP any more. It took a bit of memory which was the killer in this case. So I installed the Elbox 1200 4MB card to give it extra memory. I remember having problems with it before in which my Amiga 1200 would crash and not start any more. After I installed it I had no problems at first but after about 1 1/2 hours it happened. Even after switching it off I could not switch it back on any more. The lights would start flashing. The next day it started again but soon after about 10 minutes it happened again. I have placed another card in it at the moment with 8MB memory. At the time of writing this column it still works but I remember that this card had the same problem. If it fails I will try to remove the disk image device software to see if it frees enough up memory so I can transfer my files again.
It is now early Friday evening and this weekend will be all about programming in Amos. Time to get some work done on the disk magazine. I am really going to set some targets for this weekend. The plan for this weekend is to get some code done on displaying text on the screen. I would be really happy if I get some crude form of displaying text on the screen done so I can look back at a productive weekend. I will write all about in the column of next week. Happy weekend Amigans!
We arrived back in Holland and are trying to adjust ourselves again to the Dutch way of living. It was a great holiday and we had a lot of fun. Instead of taking the train from Lampang to Bangkok on Tuesday evening (read about it in Last post from Thailand) we took the plane on Wednesday morning to Bangkok. I am happy we had to use the plane since it is so much faster and it leaves you with extra time for other things. Of course it is more expensive but it was worth the extra cost. As always we plan to pack early but it never happens. On Tuesday evening we got back from the city around 9:00 pm. I wanted to take the car out for one last ride and also enjoy (still a day in Bangkok but just to be sure) a Singha beer one more time
And it tasted really good that last (I drank some other brand in Bangkok for the last day) Singha beer. We managed to pack (well I say we but in fact my wife did and does always the packing) all the stuff and go to sleep around midnight. With so much stuff, things we left behind and the loads of gifts, I was afraid we would be over the weight limit. This was true as we found out the next day checking the bags in at the local Airport in Lampang. By becoming a member on the spot (for free) you could carry another 10 kilo on board. We had some heavy stuff with us for my wife’s brother in Bangkok and when we got that out we had no problems at the airport in Bangkok when we checked in our bags. We arrived in Bangkok at the end of the morning and after checking into our hotel we went out to the big mall Seacon Square. Since we have no Dunkin Donuts in Holland I wanted to enjoy this in Thailand while we still could. And enjoying it I did.
We arrived in Amsterdam around 7:40 pm yesterday (Thursday) after which we still had to drive another two hours to my mom and dad’s place. We would stay the night there and drive to our home the next (Friday) day. Lucky enough I still have the weekend ahead of me before I have to go back to work on Monday. One thing I really miss already is the Thai (street) food. Lucky enough my wife is a really great cook and can create some really amazing Thai dishes.
Currently I am also writing a new article related to MorhpOS. I will post it this weekend. I also will try to start writing a first article in a series of many regarding programming on the Amiga. That brings us to the question about the Phreeboard (read about it in Last post from Thailand). I really wanted to bring it back home but that would mean making some sacrifices. I really could not leave it behind so it is here in Holland. I had to leave some of my beloved stuff behind which I intended to bring back. Part of the so called “cut list” are my Amos books and some other computer related books. Mastering Amiga Amos and the Amos Professional User Guide got left behind. I will bring this back with me on the next trip. Now it is time to get acquainted yet again with MorphOS. This is going to be a journey I am really going to enjoy and love.
First thing I did when I arrived in Lampang (Thailand) was to check the book case for all my books I left behind when we moved to Holland. And to my surprise there it was; the Amos Professional User Guide. I can’t believe I left it behind in Thailand. When we moved I was working on some Amos related stuff for which I would require the manual. So what made me leave it here? I really can’t remember why I left it here. Besides the manual there was a lot more great stuff I left behind. There was the “Mastering Amiga Amos” book from Phil South. And also the “Mastering Amiga C” book from Paul Overaa. I also discovered the Amos Club Holland Newsletter 1, 2 and 3. And there was also the “Amos PD Catalogue November 1990”. I just had another look at the book case and I discovered my original “Amos the Creator” manual. I had an old 1.2 version of the manual in Holland which I bought, together with a lot of other Amos stuff, from another user some time ago. I already search for this manual for some time for which I was sure it was in Holland. Talking about a discovery of great significance.
I have some other books I left behind which range from the Microsoft history to Netscape and other computer related books. But my greatest love, and holy bible, is the book “Fire in the Valley – The Making of the Personal Computer” from Paul Freiberger and Michael Swaine. This is something I will save for back in Holland and reserve some time and piece for it each time I want to read it. I want to savour every page of that book once I read it again. I really recommend you to go out and purchase this book as this is a classic and great read. If you are like me and love the history about computers, especially the start of it, you will love this book. It tells you everything about the golden days of computers.
I started to read “Mastering Amiga C” and noticed (probably the reason I left it here) that the Amiga has a very small role to play in it. It does talk a great deal about the Amiga C compilers but when it comes too actually programming in C on the Amiga there is not much information. It mostly discussed C in general. There are better books out there that will teach you the skills of programming in C. None the less the Amiga info in the book is of valuable to anyone. I could have a lengthy blog posting about the lack of good programming information for Amiga OS4 but I better save it for another time.
Enjoy some pictures of my discovered treasures.
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