ngorelic@csm9a.UUCP (Noel Gorelick) (02/17/88)
(Dontch'a just hate the phrase "Hi I'm new here?")
Anyway, I am, and I could use a little guidance. (Just a little, I promise)
Here's the situation:
1) I have an amiga. (Ok, that's a start...)
a) it is one of the first ones, so I assume it's a 1000?
(There was only one when I bought it)
b) Um, Workbech 1.1 Maybe?
2) I have used it _VERY_ little. (next to none)
3) I am currently amiga-illiterate. (or hadn't you guessed that yet?)
Where/What is a good starting point to allow me to use this thinggy
to it's full capacity. Books, mags, etc.
I am not computer-illiterate. (I can pass for hacker on 3-4 systems)
but the one issue of Amiga World I looked at was over my head.
I would appreciate any help.
"Time of your life, Huh kid?" | ngorelic@csm9a
-Guido, the killer pimp | ...cu-den!udenva!isis!csm9a!ngorelic
| feel.free.to.jump.in.here.anywherehcm@hpclla.HP.COM (Harry Muttart) (02/18/88)
How to get started fastest? Hmmm.... If you do not know 'C', most of the stuff below is painful to learn from... I suppose that the ROM Kernal manuals are definitely on the "MUST" list. They tend to overwhelm you with info that you're not sure how to use (I have an original set. I hear that the Addison Wesley set is better.) There is mucho info here, but you can buy in little chunks. If you are looking for more info (most are?) then try Robert Peck's AMIGA Programmer's Guide for a good overview of interfacing with Intuition, EXEC, DOS, and some of the graphics library. The Amiga Kickstart Guide or something such is really a nice bit of work updated for release 1.2 (last generally avaiable) and covers fundamentals that many people find especially useful (basis for EXEC, LIBRARIES, Device I/O). Seems to contain more WHY stuff than other references. For graphics, Compute's Guide to AMIGA Graphics (very how-to) is hard to beat. It does include a lot of material on accessing AMIGA graphics (and graphics structures!) thru BASIC! Which is probably marginally interesting at best if you be a REAL HACKER. Look it over...see what ya think. As always, Hackers learn by reading the code of others. Look for some neat public domain hacks. Then look for the corresponding source. With the stuff from above (even just the RKM (ROM Kernal Manual)) you should be able to see how the magic was done. The Fred Fish collection of public domain disks contain a lot of examples of neat hacks and source. A good BBS will have quite a few, also. The Amazing Computing magazine distributes "Fish" and other PD collections and is a good source of Amiga info too. As always, these are mainly MY OPINIONs... Feel free to ignore or pursue... Harry Muttart (* I ain't a real hacker (note the M2 comment) but I still have opinions *) (* The stuff indented above has been very helpful for me. Fills in the *) (* background that I need to hang the RKM info from. You have to look *) (* at code, though... *)