Classic Amiga: Cool back layer trick in AMOS

[HEXdidnt]

This pretty much blows my mind: a 1-bit image turned into a multicolour sky/mountain background using a palette trick that's essentially the same as something that can be done in SAM BASIC, and the super-efficient palette built to take full advantage of it over the rest of the screen and in the other layers:

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I tried getting into AMOS years ago, with absolute zero success... I wonder if I should give it another try sometime...

 

[CosmicCruncher]

Funny I’m just seeing this post, AMOS is something I really want to explore now I have my A500 up and running.

Never got in to programming beyond some BASIC on the VIC-20 and C64. Reading up AMOS looks quite a bit more advanced, have had a little play around with the interpreter for AMOS v1.34.

I was looking to get hold of Mastering AMOS by Phil South. Hard to find a copy so I may send off to have a spiral bound copy printed as I have a PDF version. It’s under a Creative Commons license these days.

 

[HEXdidnt]

I tried getting into AMOS wayback when - they were giving it away on the cover of Amiga Format towards the end of that magazine's lifespan, in a vain attempt to prolong the system's (original) lifespan by getting new blood into creating games.

Sadly, my grasp of BASIC was pretty weak, so anything more advanced just caused my brain to seize up completely. Same would likely be true today, though I'm getting better with SAM BASIC, at least.

I may have to look up that book myself - Phil South used to write for Your Sinclair, and I thought he'd branched off into music. Good to know that he got caught up with coding on the Amiga as well. My sister and I met him at one of the ZX Microfairs, as she was keen to get his autograph. I've got another AMOS book somewhere (probably at my folks' place), so I'll try to dig that out for the next meet.

...Of course, this means we may now have three possible angles for a RetCon game: DizzyAGE, the Scorpion engine, and now AMOS.

 

[CosmicCruncher]

If you do fancy the book and can’t find a copy it’s currently looking about £15 to get it printed at one of those pdf printing websites.

I would love to be able to get proficient enough to create even a basic game.

 

[HEXdidnt]

This is the one I've got - naturally out of stock and out of print now.

I don't recall getting very far with it, but that's probably no reflection on the book.