USING ST BASIC ON THE ATARI ST
Glentop Publishing
£7.95
A book
aimed at both the newcomer to programming and those unfamiliar to ST
BASIC (not Atari BASIC as it states on the cover), this is a neat
comprehensive book at a good price. A lot cheaper than most others
available.
In
this case, cheapness does not mean lack of quality for the 190 pages
are packed with solid information, diagrams, example programs and
exercises. The book follows the pattern of introducing the reader to
the language and then beginning to write programs with each
successive chapter introducing more and more complex commands. All
the BASIC keywords are covered but rather than just give a brief
explanation each is described in circumstances in which it might be
used with a small example program included. At the end of each
chapter exercises are presented to test your grasp of the concepts
in that chapter. The answers are provided at the end, or at least
suggested solutions, for, in computer programming, a problem can
often be solved by different means. At the end of the book several
ready to run programs, of the more serious kind such as conversions
and calculating programs, are included for you to use or improve.
It is difficult for someone who already knows how to
program in BASIC to judge just how good a particular book is but
this one follows the pattern I used several years ago to learn Atari
BASIC and which I found particularly successful. The book I used all
those years ago cost twice the price and at £7.95 I would not
hesitate to recommend this to any newcomer to the Atari
THE CONCISE ATARI ST 68000 PROGRAMMER'S REFERENCE GUIDE
Glentop Publishing
£15.95
The book
that anyone interested in programming the ST has been waiting for,
and it is as comprehensive as its title! Written in the U.K. by one
of the few lady computerists, Katherine Peel, who has written
in-depth articles for one of the major UK magazines, it surpasses
anything yet published in the States and is destined to become a
standard reference.
Much of the information is distilled from the ST
Developers Kit but it has been expanded and enhanced and presented
in a much more readable form. It is not a book for beginners but
anyone who can write, or even dabble, in C or Assembly should have a
copy as an essential reference. It begins with a general description
of the ST hardware and includes pin diagrams of all the expansion
ports and interfaces together with information on all of the
processors and internal controllers. An overview of TOS comes next
with full details of graphics, sound, GEMDOS and the various
interfaces such as the keyboard and floppy disk interfaces. GEM BIOS
calls, Extended BIOS calls, BDOS calls, VDI functions, Input
functions, Inquire functions, all and a lot more are documented. It
is impossible in a review to state just how much information there
is.
Ten
appendices provide all the reference material you might need whilst
another gives recommendations, compatibility and comparisons of the
various ASSEMBLERS available. The book is rounded off with sample
programs documented for several Assemblers.
If you had an 8-bit Atari, then this could be
considered the equivalent of the famous Technical Users Notes. It is
surely essential to anyone who does not have access to the
Developers Notes but who seriously wants to program the ST. I don't
know how many pages there are (they are numbered in sections) but it
is about an inch thick and worth every penny of the price.
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