The Amiga

THE AMIGA
THE AMIGA
Images;
Sounds, and
Animation
on the
Commodore"
Amiga
MICROSOFT-
PRESS
Michael Boom
PUBLISHED BY
Microsoft Press
A Division of Microsoft Corporation
16011 N.E. 36th Way, Box97017 Redmond, Washington 98073-9717
Copyright 1986 by Michael Boom

All rights reserved. No part of the contents of this book
may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means
without the written permission of the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Boom, Michael.
The Amiga: Images, Sounds, and Animation on the Commodore Amiga.
Includes index.
1. Amiga (Computer) Programming. 2. Computer graphics. 3. Computer sound
processing. I. Title.
QA76.8.A177B66 1986 006.6765 86-16388
ISBN 0-914845-62-4
Printed and bound in the United States of America.
2 3456789MLML8909876
Distributed to the book trade in the United States by Harper & Row.
Distributed to the book trade in Canada by General Publishing Company, Ltd.
Distributed to the book trade outside the United States and Canada by Penguin Books Ltd.
Penguin Books Ltd., Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England
Penguin Books Australia Ltd., Ringwood, Victoria, Australia
Penguin Books N.Z. Ltd., 1S2-190 WairauRoad, Auckland 10, New Zealand
British Cataloging in Publication Data available
Apple:" is a trademark of Apple Computer, Incorporated, and Macintosh"1 is a trademark licensed to

Apple Computer, Incorporated.
LIVE!"1 is a trademark of A-Squared Systems.
Atari^ is a registered trademark of Atari, Incorporated.
Casio R is a registered trademark of Casio, Incorporated.
Amiga'11, Amiga Kickstart, Amiga 1300 Genlock System11', Amiga Workbench'", AmigaDOS1'1,
Graphicraft"1, andTextcraft'" are trademarks of Commodore-Amiga, Incorporated.
Amiga BASIC'11 is a trademark of Commodore- Amiga Incorporated and Microsoft Corporation.
Commodore "is a registered trademark of Commodore Electronics Limited.
Centronics* is a registered trademark of Data Computer Corporation.
DeluxeMusic"", Deluxe Paint'-, Deluxe Video--, Electronic Arts", and Instant Music" are registered
trademarks of Electronic Arts.
Epson* is a registered trademark and JX-801" is a trademark of Epson America, Incorporated.
IBM^ is a registered trademark of International Business Machines Corporation.
Microsofth- is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation.
Mimetics"' and SoundScape'" are trademarks of Mimetics Corporation.
Motorola11 is a registered trademark of Motorola, Incorporated.
Digi-View"1 and Neu'Tek"' are trademarks of NevvTek.
Okimate20 is a trademark of Okidata, a division of Oki America, Incorporated.
Pioneer" is a registered trademark and LaserDisc11' is a trademark of Pioneer Electronic Corporation.
Suny^isa registered trademark of Sony Corporation of America.
Ministudio8 and Portastudio" are registered trademarks of Teac Corporation.
The Micro Forge51 is a registered trademark of The Micro Forge.
Aegis Animator"1 and Aegis Images'" are trademarks of The Next Frontier Corporation.
Space Archive'11 is a trademark of Video Vision Associates Limited.
Bugs Bunny" is a registered trademark of Warner Brothers, a division of Warner Communications
Incorporated.
Diablos and Xerox B are registered trademarks of Xerox Corporation.
DEDICATION
This book is dedicated to ail the characters at Amiga, who

designed a great computer and kept me very entertained for a
year and a half.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Foreword IX
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction xiii
SECTION 1 THE MACHINE

Chapter One A Close Look at the Amiga
SECTION 2 IMAGES
Chapter Two A Video Graphics Primer 27
Chapter Three Amiga Graphics Tools 53
Chapter Four Amiga BASIC Graphics: Screens, Windows,
and Palettes 85
Chapter Five Amiga BASIC Graphics: Creating Images 113
Chapter Six Amiga BASIC Graphics: Odds and Ends 143
SECTION 3 SOUNDS
Chapter Seven An Electronic Music Primer 173
Chapter Eight Amiga Music Tools 195
Chapter Nine Amiga BASIC Sound: Music and Speech 221
SECTION 4 ANIMATION
Chapter Ten A Computer Animation Primer 251
Chapter Eleven Amiga Animation Tools 269
Chapter Twelve Amiga BASIC Animation: Creating Moving
Objects 295
Chapter Thirteen Amiga BASIC Animation: Controlling Motion 327
Afterword The Future: Amiga's Creative Possibilities 351

Appendix A Amiga BASIC Statement Formats 354
Appendix B Companies Mentioned in This Book 360
Index 363
FOREWORD TO THE AMIGA
Electronic media diversify our worid by giving us almost instan

taneous access to a multiplicity of experiences. In the course of a
few hours, we can listen to the Beatles, talk to a friend on another
continent, watch the Super Bowl, and be in Vienna with Salieri
and Mozart.
In nearly every case, the popularity and cultural impact of an
electronic medium have paralleled its degree of realism of sights
and sounds: The best electronic media put real life in a box.
Personal computers have rarely competed with other electronic
media in the realm of realistic sight and sound reproduction, but
the Amiga's video and sound are new dimensions in the typically
number-crunching world of computing. Marshall McLuhan said,
"The medium is the message." And the Amiga's message is
audiovisual.
The Amiga is the first personal computer that can begin to
approach the video quality of television and the sound quality of
hi-fi. But unlike television and hi-fi, the Amiga is an interactive
medium. With television, you watch another world through the
video window; with the Amiga you can step through that window
and be in the other world. With hi-fi, you listen to someone else's
music; with the Amiga you can change that music or create your
own. We're talking about more than just watching and listening;
the Amiga is a medium of doing.
The Medium of Doing has arrived just in time. In the past
twenty-five years, while generations have grown up in front of the
"boob tube," Dr. Marian Diamond has been doing brain research at
the University of California. The results have been tabulated, and
Dr. Diamond has proven that the single best way to increase your
intelligence is through interaction with your environment. In short,
"use it or lose it." A Chinese proverb puts it another way "I hear
and I forget, I see and I remember, I do and I understand."
Learning requires motivation. McLuhan must have had visions
of the Amiga when he said, "Those who draw a distinction
between education and entertainment don't know the first thing
about either." The beauty of the Amiga is that you can learn by
doing, while being entertained by realistic and dazzling sound and
video. Our natural urges to create, to experiment, and to explore
are given tremendous new power by the Amiga.
The video games of a few years ago displayed images, made
primitive sounds, and were interactive, but they proved to be a
passing fad because the medium lacked audiovisual realism and
the subject matter was not of enduring human interest. We now
know that great software needs to be simple to learn, audiovisually
"hot" to grab and keep our attention, and deep and relevant
enough that our minds are engaged. With its ease of operation and
IX
tremendous powers, the Amiga is an ideal tool for the software
artist who wants to establish new standards in all of these areas.
Software that brings the best out of the Amiga will boggle minds
and make people squeal with delight.
Can we even imagine the future possibilities for the Amiga?
Western Union could have owned the patent on the telephone, but
turned it down; the company couldn't see the potential. Teievision
was first thought to be suitable only for civil-defense communica
tions. Only time and creative minds will determine the true
potential of the Amiga.
Much has been made recently of "desktop publishing," which,
by improving the quality and control available to the individual,
may revolutionize the process of communicating on paper. Without
discounting the importance of paper, video and sound loom as the
media of choice when you have to get a message across. It stands
to reason, then, that a "desktop video" market may develop around
the Amiga that eventually surpasses desktop publishing.
As the first audiovisual personal computer, the Amiga may be
the innovative product that stimulates an inteUectual revolution,
akin to Gutenberg's printing press. The Amiga: Images, Sounds,
and Animation, thoughtfully written by Michael Boom, can help
you have your own part in that revolution. Viva Amiga!
Trip Hawkins
President. Electronic Arts
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A book that touches on as many different subjects as this one

does could not be written without research help from many people.
I'd like to thank (in no particular order) the many folks at Amiga
who taught me so much about the machine they made and love:
Sam Dicker, Carl Sassenrath, Bill Kolb. Dave Needle, Howard Stolz,
Rick Geiger, Mitchell Gass, Stan Shepard, Rick Rice, Caryn Havis,
Neil Katin, Jack Haeger, R. J. Mical, Barry Whitebook, Terry Ishida,
Bob Pariseau, and many others who answered questions in the
middle of incredibly busy production schedules. At Electronic Arts,
I'd like to thank David Grady for information about Deluxe Paint,
and Stewart Bonn for feeding me beta copies of Deluxe Video,
showing me Instant Music, and letting me badger him for some of
the wonderful Electronic Arts computer games.
Many companies lent me equipment to use while I wrote this
book, a great help for a writer on a limited budget. I'd like to thank
Jerry Kovarsky at Casio. Bill Mohrhoff at Teac, and especially Jeff
Stenehjem at Xerox for time and information above and beyond the
call of duty.
Of course, research is the fun part of a book. The truly arduous
task is writing it and getting it ready for publication. I'd like to
thank the talented staff of Microsoft Press for helping me with all
aspects of producing this book, especially Dave Rygmyr for
shepherding the manuscript from the first chapter to the final blues
with unfailing cheer, skill, and true interest in the contents of the
book, and Allan McDaniel and Tom Corbett from over in Microsoft
software for answering last-minute Amiga BASIC questions.
Finally, I'd like to thank Lynn Morton for support and understand
ing through obsession, exasperation, and exhaustion. Thanks,
honey, it's done now. We can relax.
INTRODUCTION
If you ask people what their favorite art medium is, chances are
excellent that they won't reply "personal computers." Most people
think personal computers are fine for managing a database,
running a spreadsheet, and processing a few words here and there,
but they usually don't think of them as an expressive medium. If
they do, they rank personal computers somewhere below crayons
and kazoos for creating quality images and sound.
Amiga users know this stereotype is false. With internal
hardware and system software designed specifically for graphics
and music, the Amiga juggles colors and sound as easily as it
calculates spreadsheets and shuffles words. By using the powerful
creative software available for the Amiga, users can draw pictures
with exquisite color and detail, and produce music and sound
effects on a par with professional synthesizers. Amiga users can
combine their artistic and musical masterpieces to create cartoon-
quality animation, an activity that was previously unavailable to all
but professional and student animators with access to expensive
equipment.
Like any other medium, using the Amiga creatively takes
knowledge and practice. This book is written to give you both,
teaching you the concepts you need to understand what you're
doing, and giving you examples so you can experiment with what
you learn. If you're a novice Amiga user, you'll find the fundamental
concepts of computer graphics and sound explained in primers
throughout the book. With these concepts m hand, you can easily
go through the following chapters that show you how to use
application programs like Deluxe Paint, Deluxe Music, and Deluxe
Video. Step-by-step examples give you practical experience using
these applications.
Experienced Amiga users will also find much of interest in this
book. The chapters on application programs explain advanced
features, and show you some tricks that you can use to get unique
results. They also review other software on the market, and explain
how additional hardware can turn your Amiga into an even more
advanced creative tool. If you're a BASIC programmer, you'll find
chapters explaining the intricate details of Amiga BASIC graphics,
sound, and animation commands, and showing you in example
programs how to combine them for useful results.
xui
HOW THIS BOOK IS ORGANIZED
This book is divided into four sections to make it easy for you to
find a specific area of interest. Section 1 introduces you to the
Amiga, taking you on a detailed tour of its hardware and system
software to see what makes it such a powerful computer. Section 2
covers graphics, showing you how to ceate still images on the
monitor screen. In Section 3, you'll find information about sound
how to create music, speech, and sound effects using the Amiga's
internal sound synthesis. Section 4 teaches you about animation,
showing you how to give motion to figures on the screen.
Each of the last three sections is organized the same way: The
first chapter of each section is a primer that introduces you to
important concepts you'll work with in that section. For example,
you learn about how computer monitors create images in Sec
tion 2, how the ear hears sound in Section 3, and how the illusion
of motion is created by changing still pictures in Section 4. The
second chapter of each section shows you how to use a specific
application programDeluxe Paint in Section 2, Deluxe Music
in Section 3, and Deluxe Video in Section 4and discusses
additional software and hardware you can use with your Amiga.
The remaining chapters in each section deal with Amiga BASIC
statements and functions.
HOW TO USE THIS BOOK

The first section of this book was written to give you a full
understanding of the parts of the Amiga, so you won't be confused
by descriptions in the following three sections. If you know the
Amiga well already, you might want to skip Section 1 and jump
directly to whichever of the last three sections interests you most.
Within each special-interest section, you should read the first
chapterit introduces you to concepts you'D need to know to
understand the other chapters in the section. Once you've read the
first chapter, you can read the second chapter and skip the BASIC
chapters that follow it if you're interested in application programs
and not BASIC programming, or you can skip the second chapter
and read just the BASIC chapters if you're interested only in BASIC
programming. If you haven't used Amiga BASIC before, you should
be sure to read Chapter Four (in Section 2); it tells you how to enter
and run programs.
You might want to try reading some of the BASIC chapters
even if you aren't a programmer. Much of the information there is
interesting to non-programmers, and if you read the beginning of
Chapter Four, you'll learn enough to enter and run the BASIC pro
gram examples without having to know how they work. In the
interest of easy typing and less chance for error, the program ex
amples (with a few exceptions) are short and simple. Just remem
ber to press the RETURN key at the end of each line as you type a
program to enter the line in the Amiga's memory.
xiv
There are two helpful appendices in the book. Appendix A is a
list of all the BASIC statements and functions used in this book,
with the format they use and a short explanation. As you write
your own BASIC programs, you can use this appendix as a
convenient reference if you forget the exact format of a statement,
or if you need to find the right statement to perform a BASIC task.
Appendix B is a list of all the software and hardware companies
mentioned in the book, with addresses you can write to for more
information about their products. Following these appendices is a
full index to help you quickly find any topic discussed in the book.
WHAT YOU NEED TO USE THE EXAMPLES IN THIS BOOK

To try the examples in this book, you need four different software
packages: Deluxe Paint for Chapter Three, Deluxe Music for
Chapter Eight, Deluxe Video for Chapter Eleven, and Amiga BASIC
for all the BASIC chapters. Amiga BASIC comes with every Amiga;
you can buy the other three programs at any Amiga dealer.
You can run the examples with a minimum of equipment.
Although some of the examples that show you how to record your
creations require a camera, a printer, a VCR, or a cassette recorder,
most require no more equipment than your Amiga, monitor, and
mouse. Since it's quite easy and inexpensive to add memory to
the Amiga, all the examples in this book assume that you're using
an Amiga with 512 kilobytes of RAMthey may not work on
a 256K Amiga.
One important note: If you're a rank beginner at using the
Amiga and don't know how to use the mouse, menus, keyboard,
and its other parts, you should read Introduction to Amiga, a
manual that comes with the Amiga, before you read this book. It
describes all the basics you need to know to use the Amiga. Once
you know them, you should have no trouble.
Time spent in using the Amiga's sound and graphics creatively
can be some of the most enjoyable time you'll ever pass in front of a
computer. The things you learn in this book should help you turn
your ideas into visible and audible results with a minimum of
trouble. Your friends may laugh when you sit down at the keyboard,
but when you start to roll the mouse...
xv
The
In this section, you Machine
take a close look at the
Amiga to see what it is
and what it does. You'll
learn about the equip
ment the Amiga uses
to run, and to produce
graphics and sound.
I'll also learn about
levels of
with
every
mation and
presented in this sec
tion will take some of
the mystery out of the
Amiga's performance,
and give you the back
ground to tackle other
sections of this book
with ease.
CHAPTER ONE
A CLOSE LOOK AT
THE AMIGA
When you first encounter an Amiga, you see only half of
what makes it work. The half you can see and touchthe
keyboard, the console, the monitor, and the disk driveis
the hardware. The invisible half of the Amiga is its
software.
Software is a set of instructions, stored in the computer
or on a floppy disk, that determines how various compo
nents and functions interacthow the keyboard sends
messages to the computer, for example, and how the
monitor screen displays pictures. The software makes the
computer perform tasks that are helpful to you. Without it,
a computer is an expensive and inactive desk ornament.
A complete Amiga computer system is a working
partnership of both hardware and software. To understand
the entire system, you must learn about both halves of the
computer.
THE HARDWARE
In Figure 1-1, you see the four main components of a basic

Amiga computer system: the console, the monitor, the keyboard,
and the mouse. You can add other useful components (called
peripherals) to the Amiga, such as printers, modems, or additional
disk drives, until your system expands beyond your desk and starts
to take over the room. However, for the minimalist or the frugal,
these four essential components are the bare minimum you need to
make the system work.
Figure 1-1.
The four basic hardware

components of the Monitor
Amiga computer system
Console
Keyboard
Mouse
SECTION 1: THE MACHINE
4
THE MONITOR
Chances are you pay more attention to the monitor than to any
other part of the Amiga system. The monitor is the Amiga's
channel of communication with you; it gives you visual information
through its screen, and audio information through its speaker.
The Amiga can work with three different kinds of monitors: RGB
monitors, composite video monitors, and standard television sets.
RGB {short for Red, Green, Blue) monitors show the sharpest
picture with the most vivid colors, and can display 80 columns of
readable text. You should use an RGB monitor with the Amiga,
even if you have to save pennies for years, because it's the only
monitor that does full justice to the Amiga's graphic abilities.
A composite video monitor is midway in quality between an
RGB monitor and a TV set. If you have a component television
system, chances are the monitor that displays the picture is a
composite video monitor. Whiie it doesn't display as clear a picture
as the RGB monitor, a composite video monitor attached to the
Amiga still produces a good-looking picture, thanks to the Amiga's
superior composite video signal.
The standard home television set can range in quality from
pretty good to horrible. The advantage to a TV set, of course, is
that you can use your regular TV without having to buy a special
computer monitor. If you do use a color television set for a monitor,
the Amiga gives it an excellent TV signal for color display. On a
good-quality TV set, the Amiga can display 60 columns of readable
text on the screen.
The Amiga has three different connectors (called ports) for
connecting monitors, one port for each kind of monitor. Since the
three ports all send out the same display information (although in
different forms), you can connect all three different kinds of
monitors at the same time and show the Amiga's video display on
three screens at once.
THE KEYBOARD
You use the keyboard to send information to the Amiga, feeding
it words, numbers, or requests for special functions as needed. The
keys are laid out like a standard typewriter, so if you're a touch
typist, you'll feel at home.
You'll also notice some keys not found on a typewriter. On the
left and right sides of the Spacebar you'll find the two Amiga keys,
each marked with a red "A." By holding down an Amiga key and
pressing another key, you can perform special program functions,
such as choosing a menu item. Next to the Amiga keys are the ALT
keys, and above the left SHIFT key you'll find the CTRL key. The ALT
and CTRL keys are special keys that, like the Amiga keys, are used
in combination with other keys to execute various program
functions.
A Close Look at the Amiga
5
To the right of the main keyboard are four cursor keys, marked
with arrows, that let you move the cursor around the monitor
screen in applications such as word-processing programs. Above
the cursor keys is the HELP key, which you can use in some
applications to get helpful information about using that program.
Along the top of the keyboard are ten function keys (F1-F10) that can
perform special program functions with a single keystroke, and on
the far right of the keyboard is a numeric keypad that's laid out like
a calculator to speed number entry. You can see these special keys
in Figure 1-2.
Figure 1-2. Function keys HELP key
The special keys of the

Amiga keyboard
'''''Ti'lrfrr
' ' ' ' '
u. EXJUU
1 ' ' ' I' ' ' '
CTRL key ALT keys Cursor keys Numeric keypad
The keyboard is connected to the Amiga with a coiled extension

cord so you can move it to the location most comfortable for you
a considerable convenience if you like to type lying down or
scrunched over in weird positions. The keyboard has a set of small
legs in the back that you can fold up to slide the keyboard under
the console so that it will be out of the way when you're not using
the Amiga.
THE MOUSE
The mouse does away with a lot of typing and is the key to the
simplicity of using the Amiga. As you roll it on a flat surface, the
mouse moves an on-screen pointer. You can use the mouse to move
the cursor quickly in word-processing programs, for example, or to
select menu items or objects on the screen that start activities like
printing or displaying different sections of text. The mouse also
makes an excellent drawing instrument: You can use it with
graphics programs to draw images on the screen.
6
THE CONSOLE
The console is the real workhorse of the system. It contains all
the microchips and other electronic components that actually do
the work of computing and storing information. The console also
contains the internal disk drive, which you use to access and store
data and programs on floppy disks. From the outside, the console
looks simple and innocent. You have to look inside to see what a
hotbed of activity the console really is.
The interior of the console is not the rat's nest of tangled wires
and glowing lights that you might expect if you've watched a lot of
low-budget science fiction movies. Instead, it's an orderly array of
microchips and other small electronic components, all laid out on
two green boards collectively called the motherboard. You can see
the motherboard and other components that are housed in the
console in Figure 1-3.
Power supply Motherboard Figure 1-3.
Inside the Amiga con

sole: the motherboard,
internal disk drive, and
power supply.
Disk drive
The power supply

The power supply simply converts the electricity from your wall
socket into the small voltages required to run the Amiga. A fan in
the power supply keeps the inside of the console cool; that's
necessary because when the computer is on, shuffling electrons
7
through its circuits, it generates heat. Too much heat can keep the
chips from working correctly, and could possibly damage them. To
help keep the computer cool, there are vent slots on the bottom and
back of the console. You should take care not to block these slots
when you use the Amiga.
The motherboard
Most of the real work of the Amiga is done by just four chips on
the motherboard: the microprocessor and the three custom chips
(see Figure 1-4). The microprocessor is the master chip that does
most of the "brain work" of the Amiga such as adding, dividing,
and sending commands and information to other chips. The
custom chips, which are unique to the Amiga and contribute
significantly to its overall computing power, back up the micro
processor by taking care of details such as creating video displays
and generating sounds. This frees up the microprocessor chip and
allows it to run more efficiently
Figure 1-4. ROM chips
I
The chips on the
motherboard: The
microprocessor chip, cus
tom chips, and RAM and

ROM chips are labeled.
RAM chips The 68000 microprocessor
The three custom chips go by the names of Agnus, Denise, and

Paula. The microprocessor chip goes by the more imposing name
of the Motorola 68000.
8
The Motorola 68000 microprocessor
The power of a microprocessor is measured by the amount of
data it can handle at a time and the speed at which it operates. As
microprocessors go, the 16/32-bit Motorola 68000 is fast. 16/32 indi
cates the 68000's data-handling capabilities: The 68000 processes
data in chunks of 16 bits and 32 bits. Inside the microprocessor, the
68000 works on 32 bits of data at a time, then sends data out to the
rest of the computer in 16-bit chunks. This makes the 68000 much
faster than a 16-bit microprocessor, such as that used by the
IBM PC, and makes the Amiga a very quick machine.
Other computers, such as the Apple Macintosh and the Atari ST
computers, also use the 68000 microprocessor. What sets the Amiga
apart from these computers is its set of custom chips that give it
even greater speed and enhanced abilities.
The custom chips

Each of the custom chips has its own set of duties. Demse is
the display chip; it controls the way images are created on the
monitor screen. Agnus is the animation chip; it draws and moves
figures on the monitor screen. Paula is the peripherals/sound chip;
it creates the Amiga's sounds, and also sends data back and forth
between the motherboard and the peripherals, such as the disk
drive, mouse, and keyboard.
The custom chips are perfect subordinates to the micro
processor. They can perform their duties without bothering the
68000, leaving it free to concentrate on weightier matters like
numerical calculations. This is one of the truly revolutionary
features of the Amiga hardware. Many other computers have no
custom chips, so the microprocessor must do all the display, sound,
and peripheral work, which slows it down considerably.
Another feature of the Amiga is the way in which its
microprocessor interacts with its custom chips. Most computers
that have custom chips usually require the microprocessor to
constantly supervise the custom chips, which again slows down
the microprocessor, although not nearly as much as a computer
without custom chips. In the Amiga, however, the microprocessor
is interrupt driven, which means that the system was designed so
that the custom chips send a signal to the microprocessor when
they need instructions, rather than the microprocessor having to
constantly check each chip (a process called polling).
The Amiga's interrupt-driven microprocessor contributes signifi
cantly to the speed of the system. Together with the custom chip
partnership, it gives the Amiga the necessary speed to animate
figures smoothly on the screen, transfer data quickly from a disk to
the internal computer, or to perform business calculations without
making you wait a long time. The chip partnership also means that
many of these tasks can be performed simultaneously.
9
The memory chips
Memory chips are another important set of chips on the
motherboard. There are two types of memory chips: RAM and ROM.
RAM is short for Random Access Memory, ROM is short for Read
Only Memory. Each type of memory stores data, but in
a completely different manner.
RAM, also called read/write memory, is erasable, so the
microprocessor and custom chips can store data there, retrieve it
later, and erase the data so new data can come in. You should note
that nothing can be kept in RAM permanently, because RAM has
the unfortunate characteristic of losing all of its stored data when
the power is turned off.
ROM isn't erasable; the data stored there (sometimes called
firmware) is always available to the Amiga. The microprocessor
and custom chips can read the data in ROM, but they can't erase it
or store new data there. The Amiga's ROM chips store important
system software (put into them at the factory) that the com
puter uses to run itself (a process called booting) when you first
turn it on.
Other chips and electronic components on the motherboard take
care of details needed to send data and audio-video information out
of the console. Although they're all necessary, the microprocessor,
custom chips, and memory chips are the most important chips on
the board-
The internal disk drive

The disk drive built into the console is called the internal disk
drive, to distinguish it from drives that can be attached to the
console by cable (conveniently called external disk drives). Disk
drives are necessary to read data stored on floppy disks, and to
store the data that would otherwise be erased from RAM when you
turn off the computer.
The Amiga's internal drive uses 3/2-inch floppy disks, a
convenient size to put in a shirt pocket and carry around. The
internal drive is a double-sided drive, which means that it records
data on both sides of the disk- This gives each disk twice the data
capacity that it would have on a single-sided drive. The Amiga
drive offers 876 kilobytes of storage on each disk, a tremendous
capacity for a disk that small.
The Amiga uses a special method called direct memory access
(DMA) to store and retrieve disk data. Simply put. DMA means that
data can go directly from the disk drive to the Amiga's memory or
from the Amiga's memory to the disk drive without passing
10
through the microprocessor. This means that data transfer between
the drive and memory is very fast. It also means that the disk drive
can transfer data to and from RAM without stopping the other
workings of the Amiga. This is very handy when the Amiga is
busy animating a figure on the screen or creating music on the
speaker. It doesn't have to stop while it gets new information from
the disk drive for the next animation sequence or a new song.
PORTS AND CONNECTORS

Arranged around the outside of the console are sockets for
connecting peripherals. These are called ports and connectors, and
act as portals for passing information between the chips inside the
Amiga and equipment in the outside world. In Figure 1-5, you can
see the ports and connectors on the front and right side of the
Amiga console. In Figure 1-6 (on the next page), you can see the
ports and connectors on the back of the console.
Figure 1-5.
The ports and connectors

on the front and right
side of the console.
Internal RAM connector Controller ports Expansion connector
The internal RAM connector

On the front of the console is a central panel that hides the
internal RAM connector. If you grasp the panel firmly and pull it off,
you can see the connector. You can use the connector to expand
the Amiga's 256 kilobytes of internal RAM to 512 kilobytes to give it
more memory to store programs and data. No soldering or tricky
work is required: You simply buy a memory-expansion cartridge
that plugs into the internal RAM connector.
11
The controller ports
On the right side of the Amiga, you can see two controller ports.
The Amiga's mouse plugs into the first of these ports. The con
troller ports are not just for mice, though. You can plug in other
controllers as well, such as joysticks, light pens, or touch tablets.
The controller ports pass information from the controllers to the
Paula chip so the Amiga can read the controller's position or
actions. Two controller ports let you use two controllers at once.
The expansion connector

Just to the right of the controller ports is a hidden connector. You
can pry off the small plastic panel covering it by using a penknife, a
small screwdriver, or a long fingernail. Once you uncover it, you'll
see the edge of the motherboard sticking out with what look like
small copper teeth. This is the expansion connector. (Don't touch
the teetha spark of static electricity from your finger could
damage the Amiga.)
The expansion connector provides direct access to the chips
inside the console. This connector makes the Amiga an "open
machine" in the jargon of the computer market, because you can
add components that require direct contact with the inner chips.
The expansion connector lets you customize your Amiga.
Some examples of components you can add to the Amiga using
the expansion connector are a hard disk drive to add more external
data storage, extra RAM chips to add more memory (up to 8
megabytes, in addition to the maximum 512K internal memory),
and a video-signal converter to send video images directly into the
Amiga from sources such as video cameras. Most expansion
components have a built-in connector identical to the Amiga's, so
you can add more than one device to the Amiga without "using
up" the expansion connector. (If you took the plastic cover off to
look at the expansion connector, be sure to put it back on. It
protects the connector, and ensures that you don't accidentally
short out the inside of the Amiga.)
Figure 1-6.
The ports and connectors
on the back of the

console.
Disk-drive port Audio ports TV modulator port
12
The keyboard port
If you turn the Amiga console around so you can see its back,
you'll see a row of ports, shown in Figure 1-6. The first port on the
left is the keyboard port, which passes information from the
keyboard to the inside of the console. The keyboard cord plugs in
here. If you run the keyboard cord under the console, you can slide
the keyboard under the console whenever you're not using
the machine.
The parallel port

Immediately to the right of the keyboard port is the parallel port.
It sends data out of the console to whatever is attached to the port
(usually a printer). Most parallel printers use a standard cable and
data-transmission method called "Centronics parallel" after a series
of printers sold by the Centronics Corporation. The Amiga's parallel
port uses a modified Centronics standard, so with a special Amiga
cable you can attach any printer that uses the Centronics standard.
The disk-drive port

To the right of the parallel port is the disk-drive port. You can
connect up to three external disk drives here to add to the storage
capacity of the system. To add more than one drive to this port,
you connect each new drive to the back of the last one to create a
chain. Every drive on the chain has direct memory access to the
Amiga's RAM for fast data transfer
The serial port

To the right of the disk-drive port is the serial port. The serial
port is used to connect devices that need serial data from the
computer, such as a modem (a device that transfers data over
telephone lines between the Amiga and another computer) or a
serial printer. There is a standard for serial-data transmission called
"RS232" that determines the way the wires in a connecting cable
are used and the way the bits are sent over the wires. The Amiga's
serial port uses a modified RS232 standard, so with a special
Amiga cable you can attach any serial peripheral that uses the
RS232 standard.
The audio ports

The two audio ports are to the right of the serial port. They send
out the audio signals that create the Amiga's sound. There is one
audio port for the left channel and one for the right channel.
For good sound production, you can use the audio ports to
connect the Amiga to a stereo system, just as you would connect a
cassette deck or a compact disc player. The audio ports have a
13
line-level output {the same kind that cassette decks produce),
which means the audio signals produced from these ports must be
amplified in order to be heard. Using standard audio cables, you
can connect these audio ports to a stereo amplifier, using the
inputs for a tape deck, compact disc player, or an auxiliary device.
If you want to record music you create with the Amiga, you can
connect the audio ports to the inputs of a tape recorder to put your
sounds on tape.
The RGB port

The port immediately to the right of the audio ports is the RGB
port. If you use an RGB monitor for your computer display, you plug
it into this port. The RGB port works with both analog and digital
RGB monitors, although you need a special adapter cable to
connect a digital RGB monitor.
The TV modulator port

To the right of the RGB port is the TV modulator port. This port
sends out a standard television broadcast signal over a cable
(included in the TV modulator package available from your Amiga
dealer) you attach to the antenna inputs of a TV set. If you decide
to use a TV set as your computer monitor, you connect it to the TV
modulator port.
The video port

The video port is the port farthest to the right of the back of the
console. It sends out an NTSC signal for a composite video monitor,
the same type of signal that comes from the VIDEO OUT jack on the
back of most video cassette recorders. (NTSC stands for the
National Television Systems Committee, which sets the standard
for video signals.)
If you use a composite video monitor for your computer display,
you plug it into the video port. If you use a monitor that plugs into
another port (a TV or RGB monitor), you can plug a video cassette
recorder into the video port and record the images you view on
the monitor.
COMMON PERIPHERALS
You can expand the minimum Amiga system with peripherals
that add power and make the Amiga more useful. These common
peripherals help save working time, and can transfer the results of
the Amiga's work onto paper or over the phone lines.
SECTION V THE MACHINE
14
One of the most useful additions to the Amiga system is a
printer. Printers come in all shapes, sizes, and capabilities, and the
Amiga will work with the majority of them. Most printers are used
just to print text, but many will also print pictures from the Amiga's
screen. These graphics printers are a very useful tool for artists.
Letter-quality printers
Businesses use letter-quality printers to create letters that look
like they were done on a typewriter. The letter-quality printer
puts characters on paper by striking an inked ribbon with fully
formed characters on the ends of spokes, much like a typewriter.
Although their printing is crisp and clear, letter-quality printers are
of little use for graphics, since they can only create characters and
not pictures.
Impact dot-matrix printers

The impact dot-matrix printer is the most common printer used
with computers. It uses a print head with a vertical row of tiny pins
that create characters by striking m different combinations against
an inked ribbon as the head moves across paper. If you look closely
at the characters, you can see they're made of dots imprinted by
the pins. The printer creates pictures using the same method of
building images with tmy dots. Most impact dot-matrix printers
are strictly black and white, but some use colored ink ribbons to
create color pictures.
Thermal-transfer printers
Thermal-transfer printers work much like dot-matrix printers, but
use points of heat to create dots directly on special paper, similar to
the dots created by a dot-matrix printer. Thermal printers also print
pictures that look much like an impact dot-matrix picture; some
even use a ribbon containing colored wax to create color pictures.
Thermal-transfer graphics aren't usually as good as dot-matrix
graphicsthe placement of the dots on the paper isn't always as
accurate and the dots are sometimes smeared-but thermal
printers are usually much less expensive than other types.
Ink-jet printers
Ink-jet printers spray small drops of ink on paper to form text
characters and graphics. Most models print only one color, but
more expensive models are available that can print multiple colors
using separate jets for each color. They're worth the cost if you
want high-quality printed graphics, because they print with vivid
and even coloration.
15
Laser printers
The laser printer is a type of printer that's out of the price range
of most personal-computer users. It creates pictures and text using
a photosensitive drum and toner the way a photocopier does, but
creates the images on the drum with a laser instead of exposing
the drum to a printed document through a lens, like a photocopier.
Laser printers are very fast and quiet, and laser graphics are crisp
and clear. Most laser printers print only in one color. You can vary
the colors by using color-toner cartridges, but the text or graphics
on each page will still be printed in one color, unless each page is
sent through the printer again and reprinted using a different color
toner. As laser technology advances, look for laser printers that will
print multiple colors on the same page simultaneously. Prices
should drop as well, until laser printers are more affordable for
Amiga artists.
External disk drives

You can add up to three floppy-disk drives to the Amiga, using
the disk-drive port in the back of the console. You can use either
3/2-inch double-sided drives (shown below in Figure 1-7) or special
IBM-compatible 5Ki-inch drives designed for the Amiga (which
must be used with the Transformer IBM emulator, available from
your Amiga dealer), or combinations of both. The 5K?-inch drives
use larger disks that don't store as much data as the Amiga's
normal 3 Y?Anch disks, but they can read IBM PC disks so you can
use IBM software or read data created by an IBM PC.
Figure 1-7.
An external 3V2-inch
Amiga disk drive.
Each 3Kz-inch external drive gives you 876 more kilobytes of

disk-storage capacity, enough by itself to store all the text in this
book. A good reason to add an additional disk drive is that it
makes it much easier to copy information from one disk to another.
SECTION V THE MACHINE
16
When you use just the internal disk drive to copy files from one disk
to another, you have to swap disks back and forth until the copy is
complete. A second disk drive eliminates disk swapping, saving
you time and aggravation.
Real gluttons for disk-storage space can use the expansion
connector to add a hard-disk drive, ,which is capable of storing
megabytes of information. Although this much extra storage space
is generally used to keep a large number of records for database
programs, it is also useful for animators and musicians who want
to store long animation sequences or scores.
A tremendous data-storage capacity isn't the only benefit of a
hard-disk drive: It also transfers information to the Amiga and back
much faster than a floppy-disk drive. This speed can be very useful
when you need to feed long sequences of animation images to the
Amiga quickly.
External RAM
The Amiga can have a maximum of 512 kilobytes of internal
RAM. If you really want to expand the Amiga's memory you can
add up to eight megabytes of external RAM by plugging external
RAM cards into the external connector on the right side of the
Amiga console. Since pictures and sounds require large amounts of
memory, you might want the extra RAM to accommodate involved
animation sequences or long musical scores.
Additional peripherals
There is a multitude of other peripherals designed to help you
with specific tasks. A modem will connect the Amiga to phone
lines so it can communicate with other computers and computer
networks. Touch tablets and light pens help draw figures on the
monitor screen without using the mouse. Synthesizers add to the
Amiga's already powerful musical abilities, and video cameras,
video recorders, and other various video accessories help bring
outside video images to the Amiga, and bring Amiga images to
the outside world. You can read more about additional periph
erals in later chapters.
SOFTWARE
Since software exists only as electrical states in the Amiga's

memory or magnetic charges on a disk, it's not as easy to examine
as hardware. If you want to analyze its structure, you can look at
printouts of the code the programmer used to create the software.
17
But that's a process not unlike reading through old federal income-
tax forms, and isn't really much fun. (My apologies to die-hard
hackers and accountants.) Practically speaking, software is what it
does, so you can use a more enjoyable method of examining
software by examining its results.
SYSTEM SOFTWARE
The software included with the Amiga, called the system
software, runs the Amiga. Some of this software is stored inside
the console on ROM chips. The rest is included on two floppy disks:
the Workbench disk and the Kickstart disk- The system software
has five main programs and many smaller routines that are
structured in layers so they can work with each other.
An analogy helps to see how the system software works. Think
of a factory set up to manufacture kazoos. The factory has
machines for stamping out metal shapes, bending metal, attaching
buzzing membranes, painting metal, and boxing up finished
kazoos. The machines are run by a factory work force, men and
women expert at making sure the machines turn out the finest
kazoo craftsmanship. The individual workers are guided by
supervisors who make sure things are running smoothly. Directing
the supervisors are managers with expertise in each area of kazoo
manufacturing-one manager for metal cutting, another for
creative painting, and so forth- One step above the managers are
directorsone for each different area, like shipping and quality
control. A level above the directors are the vice presidents, who
carry out the orders of the president of the kazoo company.
Whenever the president decides to do something new, like
introduce a new line of Luciano Pavarotti-shaped kazoos, he tells
one of his vice presidents to start production. The VP gives orders
to the directors who need to be involved, who in turn issue their
orders to the managers. The managers tell the work force what
changes have to be made in running the machinery.
Although the Amiga doesn't manufacture kazoos, it runs like the
kazoo factory. The hardware (the factory work force) does the nitty-
gritty work, and the software (the management) runs the hardware.
At the lowest level of the software is a program called Exec (the
supervisors) that directly runs the hardware. Giving orders to Exec
are small subprograms called libraries and devices (the managers)
that specialize in areas like graphics, sound production, and math.
At the level above the libraries and devices are AmigaDOS and
Intuition (the directors), two programs that coordinate the work of
18
the software below to perform such tasks as moving data back and
forth between the disk drive and the motherboard and presenting
data to you in a way that's easy to understand. At the top level of
the system software are two more programs, Workbench and CLI
(the vice presidents). They take orders directly from you (the
president) and pass them down to the rest of the system software.
Figure 1-8 shows you the different layers of the Amiga system
software.
Figure 1-8.
The user
The layers of system soft

High level
Workbench CLI ware between you and
O
the hardware.
Intuition AmigaDOS
libraries and Devices
O Exec
Low level
Amiga hardware
Software layering makes it easy for programmers to write Amiga

programs. Programmers can use the lower-level programs built into
the system software to do much of the work for them. The low-level
programs like the devices and libraries include routines that
perform tasks commonly used by all programs, such as pulling in
data from the disk drive or reading what the user types on the
keyboard. The programmer can simply ask the device or library to
perform the task, instead of writing new code to do the same thing.
For example, a programmer writing a new program doesn't have to
write code to read the actions of the mouse. Instead, the new
program can ask a lower-level program to read the mouse actions
and return the information to the new program. This saves a lot of
time and trouble for the programmer.
Exec
Exec (short for system executive) is the lowest-level program of
the Amiga's system software. It's stored in the ROM chips inside
the console and on the Kickstart disk. When you turn on the com
puter, it's Exec that starts things rolling. It first clears the Amiga's
memory runs a short test of the hardware, and then asks you to
insert the Kickstart disk in the disk drive so it can bring the
19
rest of Exec into the Amiga's memory. When the Kickstart disk is
finished loading, Exec asks for the Workbench disk so it can load
the other system software-
Exec takes care of the fundamental hardware activities. It
provides routines to pass data back and forth from chip to chip and
to transfer data through the ports and connectors. Exec also has
routines to check the keys on the keyboard, to monitor the actions
of the mouse, to create video and audio signals, and to perform
other tasks fundamental to the Amiga's operation.
Exec can run many different activities at once. For example, it
can send characters out to a printer at the same time as it moves
figures on the monitor screen. This ability is called multitasking,
and is one of the features that makes the Amiga a powerful
computer.
To juggle the separate activities of multitasking, Exec has to
make sure that each activity shares the Amiga's chips without
interfering with other activities. Exec is a little like a lawyer
working for clients with conflicting interests: It spends a little time
with each activity so that the activities don't think they're being
ignored, and keeps each activity ignorant of the others.
Libraries and devices

Libraries are small programs that run just above Exec. Each
library has its own specialty, and together the libraries cover a
wide range of useful functions such as graphics, animation,
mathematical operations, and putting text on the screen. Each of
these libraries is available to higher-level software. For example, a
program that creates video pictures can use the routines built into
the graphics library, and a program that makes music can use the
sound libraries, saving the programmer a lot of time and repetitious
programming.
On the Amiga, devices aren't hardware, although their name
would imply this. They're software, much like libraries, but they
usually specialize in controlling a particular part of the Amiga's
internal hardware, instead of providing more general functions like
the libraries do. Devices take care of translating the keys pressed
on the keyboard, tracking the movements and button clicks of the
mouse, sending out data through the serial and parallel ports, and
other hardware chores. Devices also generate the Amiga's sounds
and keep track of time.
Advanced programmers in most languages can use the Amiga's
libraries and devices directly to help them with their programs.
Microsoft BASIC for the Amiga, for example, offers special com
mands that call directly on the Amiga's libraries and devices to
perform tasks that BASIC itself might not be able to do.
SECTION V. THE MACHINE
20
AmigaDOS
On the level above the libraries and devices is AmigaDOS, short
for Amiga Disk Operating System. Like a traffic dispatcher who
keeps track of trucks on a highway, AmigaDOS keeps track of data
and programs in the Amiga's memory and on disks in the disk
drives. These programs and groups of related data are called files.
When AmigaDOS stores files on a disk, it keeps track of each file's
location on the disk, the size of the file, and when it was stored.
When it comes time to bring the file back into RAM, AmigaDOS
knows where to find the file and how to transfer it back to RAM.
AmigaDOS is also in charge of starting different programs. Since
Exec can handle many different tasks at once, AmigaDOS can take
advantage of Exec's multitasking ability to run different programs
at the same time if you ask it to. In case of any conflict between
programs, AmigaDOS knows which program is more important,
and makes sure it gets chip time or storage space from Exec before
the other programs do.
You use AmigaDOS whenever you load a program from disk and
start it running. You can give commands to AmigaDOS using one
of two higher-level programs: Workbench or CLI (discussed soon).
Intuition
Intuition is a program that works just above the libraries and
devices, at the same level as AmigaDOS. It provides user-interface
routines. The user interface, simply put, is the means you use to
control a program. Intuition's routines create the elements of the
Amiga user interface: screens, windows, menus, gadgets, and
requesters. Intuition also provides routines that use libraries and
devices to put text and graphics on the screen and read the mouse
and keyboard to see what the user wants.
Programmers can use Intuitions routines to create an Amiga
user interface for their programs. Instead of making their own
menus, windows, and other features from scratch, programmers
can ask Intuition to do it for them (for example, you'll learn how to
make a window in an Amiga BASIC program in Chapter 4).
Intuition's features encourage all programmers to use a consistent
user interface so users won't have to learn a new set of commands
and rules each time they learn a new program.
Workbench
Workbench is a graphics-based program that sits at the top level
of the Amiga's system software and takes commands directly from
you. It acts as an interpreter between you and AmigaDOS so you
can use AmigaDOS to manage files on disks and in RAM. The
display you see in Figure 1-9 (on the next page) is an example of
Workbench.
21
Figure 1-9.
The Workbench display.
Workbench uses Intuition's routines to interpret your actions.

When you double-click the mouse to open up a disk icon,
Workbench uses Intuition to open a window on the screen and
fill it with icons for the files on the disk. It asks AmigaDOS to look
on the disk to see what files are there. Typical Workbench activities
include copying disks, running programs, copying files, and erasing
files from a disk.
CLI
CLJ, short for Command Line Interpreter, is a text-based
alternative to the graphics-based Workbench. Unlike Workbench, it
doesn't make use of the Intuition user-interface routines to interpret
your commands to AmigaDOS- Instead, it uses an older user
interface that requires the user to type commands in a command
line. CLJ interprets each of these commands as an AmigaDOS
activity and starts the activity the user typed in. Figure 1-10 shows
an example of a session with AmigaDOS using CU.
Although CLJ is not always as easy to use as Workbench,
it's more powerful. It provides more AmigaDOS activities than
Workbench, and is particularly useful for advanced Amiga users.
Examples of CLI activities not found in Workbench are setting a
program to run immediately when you turn on the computer, and
searching through files to find a particular piece of data. In
addition, you can use CLJ to run a series of AmigaDOS commands
to create AmigaDOS programs to perform long and involved file-
handling tasks.
22
Figure MO.
Using AmigaDOS with

CLJ commands.
You won't find directions for using CLJ in the "Introduction to

Amiga" manual. You'll find CLJ explained in the AmigaDOS User's
Manual, which is available through your Amiga dealer or a
computer book store.
SOFTWARE TOOLS
The system software is only the beginning of the software you'll
use on the Amiga. For really practical results, you'll use software
tools like Deluxe Paint, Deluxe Music, Deluxe Video, and Amiga
BASIC, featured in the other sections of this book. These programs
apply specifically to jobs you want to get done, and use the Amiga
system software to get the results you want.
You've now learned about the Amiga computer system

inside and out. The components you've read about in this
chapter, both hardware and software, work together to
make the Amiga the amazing computer that it is. But a
computer is only a toolhowever powerfuland in the
long run it's you, practicing with the machine and explor
ing its potential, who does the work and creates the
images, sounds, and animation that show off the Amiga's
special talents.

^
23
SECTION
In this section, you'll Images

learn how to create
images with the Amiga
computer, hi Chapter 2,
you'll leam the funda
mentals of video
graphics and in Chap
ter 3 you'll work with
graphics program
You'll
at the
other
grams for the
survey additional
graphics equipment
you can add to your
Amiga, and in Chap
ters 4, 5, and 6 you'll
work with the Amiga
BASIC commands.
When you're finished,
you should be well on
the way to becoming
an accomplished
Amiga artist.
CHAPTER TWO
A VIDEO GRAPHICS
PRIMER
Most of us see video graphics every day, in forms such as
television commercials or advertising displays in shopping
malls. But despite their omnipresence, few of us under
stand how they're created. Unlike simpler media such as
watercolors or pen and ink, video uses complex equipment
to create images. Still, like any other medium, the quality
of video images is determined by the quirks and foibles of
its constituent materials. Just as the texture of paper and
the transparency of watercolor paints give watercolor
pictures an unmistakable quality, the glowing phosphors of
a monitor screen give video images properties not found in
any other media.
To do your best work creating images on the monitor,
you should get to know the intricacies of video and learn
what the Amiga is capable of creating with the video-
handling graphics routines in its system software. In the
chapters following this one, you'll learn how to apply the
Amiga's graphic powers directly, by drawing and moving
objects on the screen. But first, you should learn about the
two crucial components that determine the way you see
video images: the monitor that displays the image, and the
eye that sees the image.
HOW YOU SEE BRIGHTNESS AND COLORS
Human eyes are complicated organs. They perceive shape,

distance, brightness, and color, all by sensing the light coming in
through the pupils at the front of the eye. Although seeing shapes
and judging distance are obviously very important to our everyday
lives, brightness and color are often more important to the artist.
For video images, brightness and color are even more important
and the monitor you use with your Amiga has been designed to
create a video image that takes advantage of the way the human
eye sees colors and brightness.
PRIMARY COLORS
When you look at an image on a color monitor, you're actually
seeing an illusion of color. In fact, the monitor can display only
three primary colors: red, green, and blue. What the Amiga does is
mix and match these primary colors, and the resulting combina
tions create the rainbow of colors you seem to see. This effect is
directly related to the way your eye sees color.
At the back of the eyeball are two types of light receptors: rods
and cones. The rods see a colorless world in shades of gray, while
the cones see color. Although most people perceive a full range of
SECTION 2: IMAGES
28
colors-red, yellow, green, cyan, blue, violet, and many colors in
betweenthe cones in the eye can actually see only the three
primary colors: red, green, and blue. The brain blends the varying
amounts of red, green, and blue light coming into the eye to create
additional colors.
The proportion of the primary colors blended together
determines the resultant color. For example, you see yellow as
a combination of equal parts of red and green light. If there is
more red light than green light, the yellow takes on an orangish
cast. If there's more green light than red light, the yellow becomes
more of a greenish yellow. By varying the amounts of red, green,
and blue light entering the eye, you can create a vast assortment
of other colors.
RGB COLOR CREATION

To create different colors using graphics programs on the
Amiga, you can adjust the program's color controls to vary the
amount of red, green, and blue blended together to create a
resultant color. This is called the RGB method of color creation. For
example, if you open the Preferences screen from the Workbench,
you're presented with three "slider" adjustments, one each for red,
green, and blue. You create new colors using the RGB method by
setting the three different sliders, which control the amount of each
primary color By setting the sliders shown in Figure 2-1 to different
amounts, you change the ratio of red, green, and blue, creating an
entirely new color.
Figure 2-1.
The RGB controls of the

Preferences program
Moving the sliders left
diminishes the primary
colors; moving them
right increases the pri
mary colors.
A Video Graphics Primer
29
HIS COLOR CREATION
Although it's easy to set red, green, and blue blends to create
new colors, it's not always easy to describe those colors as
individual amounts of red, green, and blue, or to come up with
exactly the color you wanted to create. People tend to describe
colors using terms like "light purple" or "dark red" rather than
descriptions like "eight parts red, eight parts blue, and three parts
green." There is another way to describe colors using three
attributes: hue, intensity, and saturation (HIS). These attributes
describe colors more like the way we see them.
Hue
Hue is the most apparent color attribute. You usually talk about
hues when you talk about color, using words like red, purple,
orange, and green. Hue is set by the mixture of primary colors in a
color, and is changed by the ratio of these primary colors. For
example, a mixture of blue and green light where the blue light is
twice as strong as the green light will create a hue described as
greenish blue. A mixture of blue and gjeen light where the green
light is twice as strong as the blue light creates a hue described as
bluish green. Since hues are often mixtures of other hues, many
of them have names like reddish orange, purplish pink, and
yellowish brown.
Intensity
The overall strength of light determines the intensity of a color.
Intensity can run the range from black (no light at all) to radiant
(maximum light strength). As an example of different color inten
sities, think of the difference between the colors at the beginning of
a sunrise and the colors when the sunrise is full. Many of the hues
are the same, but their intensity grows stronger as the sunrise
progresses, so the colors become much more radiant.
Hue and intensity are separate attributesone can change
without altering the other. For example, a greenish-blue hue is
created with a mixture of two parts blue light and one part green,
so the ratio is two to one. If the strength of both the blue and green
light is doubled so the new mixture is four parts blue light and two
parts green, the ratio is still two to one, so the hue is still greenish
blue. The intensity changes, thoughthe second color mixture is
much more radiant.
SECTION 2: IMAGES
30
Saturation
The saturation of a color changes as more white is mixed in
with it. Fully saturated colors have no white mixed in, and so look
more vivid. Colors with little saturation are diluted by white and
look pale, like pastel colors.
Since radiant white is actually an equal mixture of red, green,
and blue, when you add white to a color you are actually adding
red, green, and blue in equal parts. Therefore, saturation is tied
together with hue: Both hue and saturation change as white is
added, since the equal parts of red, gieen, and blue used to create
white change the ratio of primary colors in the resultant color.
Whether a color changes hue or saturation is mostly a subjective
judgmentdoes the new color look paler, or does it actually look
like a new hue?
Some Amiga graphics programs use HIS to create new colors.
For example, Deluxe Paint, described in the next chapter, uses
three sliders to control the hue, intensity, and saturation of a color,
just as the Preferences program uses RGB sliders. Deluxe Paint
takes your HIS settings and translates them into RGB settings that
the Amiga needs to create the colors on the monitor screen.
HOW A MONITOR CREATES IMAGES
To many people, the inner workings of a computer monitor or

television set are every bit as mysterious as the biochemical
processes of the human eye. Monitors need not be quite so
mysterious: They use principles of electronics that have been
around for years.
To learn about monitors, it's easiest to first learn about
monochrome monitors, which display pictures using only one color.
Although you probably won't use a monochrome monitor with your
Amiga, understanding the principles of a simple monochrome
monitor makes it much easier to understand the color monitor you
most likely use with your Amiga.
MONOCHROME MONITORS
The heart of a monochrome monitor, or almost any monitor for
that matter, is the cathode-ray tube (CRT for short). The CRT is a
large vacuum tube with a rectangular faceplate for displaying
images, and an elongated stem containing an electron gun
protruding from the rear (see Figure 2-2 on the next page).
31
Figure 2-2
Cutaway view of a
cathode-ray tube.
Electron gun
Faceplate
When you turn on the monitor and let the CRT warm up, the
electron gun fires a stream of electrons at the front of the tube,
which is covered with a layer of phosphor particles. Each phosphor
particle glows briefly when it's hit by an electron, and remains dark
when it's not. A black-and-white television, which is the most
common monochrome monitor, uses phosphor that glows white.
Some monochrome computer monitors use green or amber
phosphor instead of white phosphor.
The electron gun

To create an image on the faceplate, the CRT focuses the stream
of electrons fired by the electron gun into a narrow beam and then
aims it at the phosphor particles. Figure 2-3 shows how the CRT
does this. First, it uses magnetic fields to accelerate the electrons
to the speed necessary to make the phosphors glow when they are
struck, and then it uses other magnetic fields to focus the electrons
into a narrow beam precise enough to hit just one small spot on the
phosphor layer at a time. Finally, magnetic fields in the deflection
area pull the electron beam up or down and right or left to aim it at
different spots on the faceplate.
Figure 2-3. Electron beam
Deflection area
Focusing and aiming

Acceleration area
the beam of a CRT
electron gun.
Electron gun Focusing area Phosphor layer
SECTION 2: IMAGES
32
Raster scanning
To create an image across the entire faceplate, most monitors
use a technique called raster scanning. The area of the screen that
will be struck by the electron beam is called a raster. The computer
or the television circuitry controlling the monitor divides the raster
into several hundred horizontal lines called raster lines. It then
sends signals to the monitor that move the beam of the electron
gun across the CRT's faceplate to draw each raster line.
To cover the entire faceplate, the electron beam starts in the
upper left corner of the screen and scans from left to right across
the top of the screen. The strength of the electron beam determines
how brightly each phosphor particle glows as the beam scans over
it. Where the phosphor should be dark, the electron gun fixes no
electrons. Where the phosphor should be fully lit, the electron gun
fires electrons at full force. For shades in between, the electron gun
fires at partial strength so the phosphor doesn't glow as brightly.
When it reaches the right end of the raster line, the electron
beam sweeps back to the left side of the screen in a motion called
the horizontal retrace. It then starts a new raster line just below the
last raster line. When it finishes this raster line, it sweeps back and
starts yet another raster line, continuing all the way to the bottom
of the screen, displaying raster line after raster line. When it reaches
the bottom it has finished its vertical sweep, and goes back to the
top left corner of the screen in a motion called the vertical retrace.
Figure 2-4 shows the motion of the electron beam in a typical
raster scan.
Figure 2-4.
The electron-beam
pattern used in raster
scanning.
The raster scan has to take place very quickly, because phosphor
particles stop glowing very soon after the electron beam moves
33
away To keep all the phosphors glowing on the screen, the electron
beam sweeps over the entire faceplate sixty times a second. This
raster-scanning rate is called the refresh rate.
COLOR MONITORS
On the faceplate of a color monitor are three different colored
phosphors: red, green, and blue, in clusters of three. If you turn on a
color monitor and look at it under a magnifying glass, you can see
the three different colored phosphor dots glowing, as shown in
Figure 2-5.
Figure 2-5.
The phosphor dots on

the faceplate of a color
monitor.
At the back of the color CRT are three electron guns, one for red
phosphors, one for green, and one for blue. A color mask located
just behind the phosphor layer of the CRT has a grid of tiny holes,
one for each cluster of colored phosphors. Each hole restricts the
beams from the three electron guns as they sweep across the
screen, so that each beam can strike only the appropriate colored
phosphor in each cluster, as illustrated in Figure 2-6. You can see in
the figure that the blue electron gun can hit only the blue phosphor
in the phosphor cluster; the hole is too small to let the beam strike
the red and green phosphors in the cluster. Likewise, the red gun
can hit only the red phosphor, and the green gun can hit only the
green phosphor.
A color monitor uses a raster scan just as a monochrome
monitor does. The color picture is broken up into raster lines, and
the three electron beams sweep in unison across the screen,
working their way across and down sixty times a second. Instead
SECTION 2: IMAGES
34
Red electron gun Figure 2-6.
Green electron gun

The color mask in a color
CRT restricts each of the
three electron beams to

its appropriately colored
phosphor in a phosphor
Blue electron gun
cluster.
Color mask Phosphor particles
of creating monochrome shades, the three electron guns vary their

intensity to create different ratios of red, green, and blue in the
phosphor clusters to create a variety of colors on the screen.
To control a color CRT, a computer or television tuner must send
separate intensity signals for each electron gun and another signal
to control the sweep of the electron beams. In an RGB monitor,
these signals are sent through separate wires directly to the
electron guns and the deflection grids. In a composite monitor or a
color television set, the signals are mixed together, sent to the
monitor over a single wire, then separated once again into separate
signals to send to the electron guns and deflection areas.
Combining and separating the signals deteriorates the picture
quality. This is why RGB monitors offer a clearer picture than
composite monitors or television sets.
TRANSFERRING A VIDEO IMAGE TO OTHER MEDIA
When you look at an image on the monitor, only you and

whoever is able to peer over your shoulder can see the picture. At
times you will no doubt want a larger audience for your graphics,
and you will need to transfer them to other media that are both
portable and accessible to more people, such as videotape, photo
graphs, and printed copies.
35
Transferring video images to other media is not always simple.
Resolution differs from medium to medium, the colors don't always
match the way they should, and the sense of proportion isn't always
the same. Basically, the quality of the image when translated to a
different medium depends on the quality of the software you use to
translate the image, the quality of the equipment you use to
reproduce it, and your skill and knowledge of the medium used.
VIDEOTAPE
Recording the Amiga's video images on videotape is an easy
way to store and reproduce Amiga graphics. The Amiga can send
out a video signal from its composite video port directly to a video
tape recorder instead of to a composite monitor. The Amiga has
the capability of driving more than one monitor at a time, so you
could display the graphics on an RGB monitor connected to the
RGB port, while recording the same image on a VCR connected to
the composite video port. The video recorder stores the images on
videotape, so you can send the tape to other people with the same
type of recorder, or broadcast the tape over a television transmitter
if you're lucky enough to have access to one.
Videotape is an excellent way to store Amiga graphics. It can
capture motion and accompanying sounds, and it plays everything
back on a familiar medium: a monitor. There are some minor
drawbacks. A computer-generated image on videotape usually
doesn't look as good as the original image. Also, if your original
image is a still image, the VCR can only display it until the tape
runs outyou can't keep the image on the monitor indefinitely.
PHOTOGRAPHING THE MONITOR SCREEN

Another relatively simple way to reproduce an Amiga video
image is to photograph the monitor screen. However, you can't just
point a camera at the screen and shoot and expect to get good
results. You must follow a few precautions to get effective photos of
your graphics.
To photograph the monitor screen, you should be in a completely
dark room so external lights won't reflect off the monitor screen and
fade the picture. Because the standard raster scan takes a full 1/60
of a second, you should also be sure the shutter speed of the
camera is slower than 1/30 of a second, which means that you'll
need a tripod to steady your camera as you shoot. Faster shutter
speeds will catch the raster scan of the monitor with its job only
SECTION 2: IMAGES
36
partly finished. For example, a shutter speed of 1/120 of a second
will catch the raster scan with only half the picture drawn on the
monitor screen.
Prints made from your video photographs have an obvious
advantage--they're portable. You can send them through the mail
or mount them on the wall. They're also easy to look atyou don't
need to take time to plug them in, turn them on, or load them. Like
any other kind of photographic print, you can use them in
thousands of different ways.
There are some disadvantages to color prints. They don't always
reproduce the colors on youi monitor with complete accuracy, and
they don't glow the way your monitor does. One way to improve
color reproduction is to shoot photographs using slides. Slides have
the added advantage of looking radiant, like the monitor screen,
when you project them on a projector screen.
Prints and slides have a common distortion problem, because a
monitor screen usually has a curve to it. When you look at it
directly, images don't seem curved because your brain adjusts for
the curvature. When you photograph a video image, you transfer it
to a flat medium, and the curvature becomes noticeable. The
picture bulges a bit in the center, like a picture T-shirt on a man
with a beer belly.
PRINTING VIDEO IMAGES

The most common way to reproduce an Amiga video image is
to print it out on a printer that's capable of printing graphics. It's
fast, simple, and inexpensive (once you've paid for the printer). You
don't have to wait days for the photo finishers to return your photos.
You can pick up the results in a matter of minutes, then slip them
in an envelope and mail them off or post them on a bulletin board.
Printed images also avoid the curvature problem you get in screen
photographs.
The quality of printed images varies a lot from printer to printer.
At its best, a printed color image looks very much like the video
original. At its worst, a printed image will provide you with a good
reason to give your printer away to the next used-computer-
equipment drive by the local Boy Scouts.
In transferring a video image to paper, the most critical compo
nent affecting the fidelity of the reproduction is probably the quality
of the printer itself. Another aspect of the problem, though, is con
verting the video image into data that the printer can understand
and subsequently reproduce. This is where the quality of the soft
ware driving your printer is very important, because it has to over
come many different obstacles.
37
Resolution
One of the first problems in translating video to print is that
most printers can print a picture with more detail, or higher
resolution, than the computer can display on the monitor. An
average dot-matrix printer can put over 900 dots of ink across the
width and 1200 dots down the length of an 8M>-by-ll-inch sheet of
paper. The Amiga's most finely detailed display on the monitor has
640 picture elements across the width of the screen and 400 picture
elements down the length, a display of lower resolution than the
900-by-1200 printed picture. To print a picture from the monitor on a
printer, the Amiga has to convert the image.
The simplest way to convert video resolution into print is to use
blocks of ink dots to represent each video picture element {pixel for
short). Each element in a video image that measures 320 by 200
pixels could be printed with a corresponding 3-by-3 block of ink
dots, stretching the 320-by-200 image into 960-by-600 ink "blocks."
The problem with converting video pixels into blocks of ink dots is
that it makes the printed image look jagged. In Figure 2-7, you can
see a diagonal line printed on a dot-matrix printer using blocks,
and the line as it appears on a video monitor. The printed line looks
pretty jagged.
Figure 2-7.
"Jaggies" created by
printing out a video
image
Screen image Printed image
SECTION 2: IMAGES
38
High-quality printer software uses more than one printer dot to
represent a screen pixel, but instead of using blocks, it uses a more
intelligent translation scheme to smooth out the jaggies (computer
jargon for the stairstep effect in curved and diagonal lines) in the
printed translation of the screen image. This uses the printer's
higher resolution to its best advantage, as you can see in Figure
2-8. Smoothing out the jaggies this way is called anti-aliasing. It
can make images look a lot better, but the software has to second-
guess the artist's intentions. If the artist intentionally puts jaggies
in the picture, they might be smoothed out in a print made using
anti-aliasing software.
Figure 2-8.
Anti-aliasing smooths the

jaggies in a printed diag
onal line.
Screen image Printed image
Converting color images to black-and-white printouts

Most computer printers don't print in color; they're strictly black
and white. To translate the colors of an Amiga image into black-
and-white ink dots for those printers, the printer software has two
choices: It can print the image as strict black and white, like a
silhouette, or it can print the image in shades of gray, which is
known as a gray scale.
Printing the image in strict black and white is the easiest way to
translate the video colors. The software simply sets a brightness
reference point. Any pixels in the video image that are brighter
than the reference point are printed as solid white, and any colors
39
that are darker are printed as solid black. The obvious disad
vantage to strict black-and-white printing is that it loses all the
subtlety of shade in the original image. It can be used to good
advantage, though, to translate a color picture with strong contrast
into a silhouette.
To turn colors into shades of gray, the printer software uses
black dot patterns on the printer to create different shades of gray.
Each shade of gray has a different dot pattern, Figure 2-9 shows
some enlargements of gray dot patterns. To turn the video colors
into gjay, the software interprets bright pixels as lighter shades of
gray and dark pixels as darker shades of gray then prints them
using the corresponding dot patterns.
Figure 2-9.
Shades of gray on a
dot-matrix printout
(enlarged).
Printing in color
Color printers don't have to interpret video colors as shades
of gray but they do have other tricky issues to resolve. Most
important is that color printing uses a set of primary colors that
aren't the same as video primary colors. Color printers use cyan,
yellow, and magenta in different mixtures to create other colors,
and often add black to give the picture more contrast.
Translating red, green, and blue directly into cyan, yellow, and
magenta wouldn't be difficult, except for one important factor; The
primary colors on a monitor screen can change in intensity but a
printer's primary colors can't. The primary colors on a color printer
have just one intensity because a dot of ink, unlike a phosphor,
can't glow at different strengths. When a color printer mixes two
SECTION 2: IMAGES
40
primary colors together, it gets just one resulting color Because
of this, most color printers have just six different solid colors
available to them: cyan, yellow, magenta, green (cyan and yellow
mixed), red (yellow and magenta mixed), and violet (cyan and
magenta mixed).
To approximate the thousands of different colors the video
screen can create, color printers use a process called dithering.
Dithering is an odd-sounding term that means the printer overlays
dots of one color on a solid field of another color. Viewed from a
slight distance, dithering creates a new color. One example is a
field of solid red with dots of black sprinkled throughout, resulting
in dark red.
Dithering gives a color printer a wide variety of colors, but its
color range is still limited compared to that of the monitor screen.
As a result, an Amiga image transferred to a printer won't show
subtle variations in color. The printed colors also have a textured
look as a result of dithering that makes them look different from
their video counterparts.
THE AMIGA'S UNIQUE GRAPHICS FEATURES
Now that you've seen how video images are created on the
Amiga's monitor, seen by the human eye, and transferred to other
media, you can look at the Amiga's specific graphics capabilities
with a better understanding of its accomplishments. The Amiga
was designed to be an exceptional graphics computer, and the
power of its hardware, combined with the graphics routines in
the system software, enable it to create video images of power
and subtlety.
The following pages describe the graphics features available in
any Amiga computer system running with its system software
the software on the Kickstart and Workbench disks you use to start
the system. Although you may not be able to use all of these
features directly (unless you're an advanced programmer capable of
using the Exec libraries and devices), most of the features are
available through application programs like Deluxe Paint, and
through programming languages like Amiga BASIC, as we'll see in
later chapters. As more software comes out for the Amiga, you can
expect to see even more of these graphics features available in
application programs.
41
PICTURE DETAIL
Like most other microcomputers, the Amiga creates images on
your monitor screen using pixels, those tiny boxy dots that give
computer images a slightly jagged quality. Creating a picture with
pixels is like building a house with bricks: Everything has square
corners. The trick to rounding off the jaggies in the picture is to use
smaller pixels; at a distance, you can't see all those square corners.
The Amiga has a choice of four different-sized pixels for varying
degrees of detail and smoothness. You can see these in Figure 2-10.
The size of the pixels you use in a screen determines the
resolution of the screen. The smaller the pixels, the higher the
resolution and the finer the detail in the pictures on the screen. The
larger the pixels are, the lower the resolution is and the coarser the
pictures are on the screen.
Figure 2-10.
The four different sizes of

Amiga graphics pixels,
greatly enlarged.
320-by-200 320-by-4O0 640-by-200 640-by-

(low-resolution) pixel pixel 400 (high-
pixel resolution)
pixel
The lowest Amiga screen resolution is 320 by 200that is, you

can fit 320 pixels across the screen and 200 pixels from the top to
the bottom of the screen. The picture in Figure 2-11 is displayed
using the Amiga's low-resolution screen. If you look closely, you can
see that the pixels are roughly square in shape. From a distance
there is plenty of detail and the jaggies aren't apparent.
In two other Amiga screen resolutions, the low-resolution pixel is
cut in half to create a rectangular pixel. In 320-by-40O resolution, the
low-resolution pixel is cut in half horizontally to look like a brick
lying flat. In 640-by-200 resolution, the low-resolution pixel is cut in
half vertically to look like a brick standing on end. These skinny
vertical pixels are useful for displaying text; by using them, you can
fit more characters across the screen. In Figure 2-12, you can see
both text and graphics displayed on an Amiga 640-by-200 reso
lution screen.
SECTION 2: IMAGES
42
Figure 2-11.
A picture using the

Amiga's 320-by-200
resolution screen.
("Venus" courtesy
ol Avnl Harrison)
Figure 2-12.
A 640-by-200 Amiga
screen: the Workbench
display,
duel,
better to be Short thin Knott,
then Shott uas shot, not Knott,
as Shott shot Shott, not Knotd
43
In the Amiga's highest-resolution screen, the pixel is a square
shape just one-fourth the size of a low-resolution pixel. The high-
resolution screen measures 640 pixels across by 400 pixels from top
to bottom. With pixels this small, the detail of the picture is very
fine, and it's hard to see jaggies. In Figure 2-13, you can see a high-
resolution Amiga picture. It has enough detail to show the indi
vidual hairs on the mandrill's face.
Figure 2-13.
A picture using the

Amiga's 640-by-400
resolution screen.
How resolution affects memory

Why are there different resolutions available on the Amiga?
Wouldn't it be best to use the high-resolution screen for all
purposes7 The answer lies in the memory required for each
resolution. The Amiga stores the information for a picture in its
memory, and the higher resolution the picture uses, the more RAM
is required to store it. For example, a low-resolution picture has
only 64,000 pixels to store (320 times 200). And a high-resolution
picture has 256,000 pixels to store (640 times 400), four times the
number of pixels in a low-resolution picture.
With four different resolutions available, you can choose the
resolution that best fits your needs without using up too much of
your Amiga's RAM. You can also use the different-size pixels as
SECTION 2: IMAGES
44
different graphic media to get fine or coarse effects, much like a
painter picking different grades of paper for a watercolor. You'll
learn how to specify the resolution you want in later chapters.
Mixing resolutions
If you would like to mix resolutions on the monitor, the Amiga
can accommodate you by allowing you to divide the monitor
display into horizontal areas called screens (not to be confused with
the monitor screen itself), each with its own resolution. Intuition,
the user interface, allows you to display different resolutions on the
monitor simultaneously by layering many screens. You can drag
screens down with the mouse pointer to reveal any screens
underneath, and you can drag screens up to cover any screens that
were underneath. Figure 2-14 shows layered screens of different
resolutions on the monitor screen.
Figure 2-14.
An Amiga display with
all four screen resolutions

displayed simultaneously.
Most Amiga programs, like Workbench for example, use only one
screen with a pre-set resolution. Some programs, like Deluxe Paint,
offer you a single screen in the resolution of your choice. A few
other programs, like Deluxe Video, use two or more screens with
different resolutions that you can move up and down on the
monitor. If you want to create your own screens, you have to use a
programming language like Amiga BASIC or C. (You will learn more
about screens and how to create them in Chapter 4.)
45
THE AMIGA COLOR PALETTE
Resolution is just one aspect of an Amiga picture; the other one
is color. Resolution gives a picture height and breadth, color can
give it depth.
The Amiga can create up to 4096 different colors on the monitor
screen by combining red, green, and blue in varying amounts. It
doesn't usually display all of these colors at once, though. Like
increasing picture resolution, increasing the number of colors in a
picture requires more memory to store the picture. To keep picture
memory requirements down to a reasonable size, the Amiga
usually limits the maximum number of colors on one screen to 32
{except on 320-by-400 and 640-by-4O0 resolution screens, where it
sets a maximum of 16 colors). This provides a wide color range
without using up so much memory that the Amiga can't run any
programs.
The Amiga uses an ingenious system to allow a great deal of

flexibility for those 32 colors. It colors its pictures like a color-by-
number painting; each pixel in the picture is assigned a number
from 0 to 31. Then the Amiga colors in each pixel with the color its
number stands for.
The colors for each color number are stored in 32 separate color
registers, also numbered from 0 to 31. These color registers are
small, individual sections of memory that store color as mixtures of
red, green, and blue in different proportions. The Amiga sends
these mixtures to the monitor, where the monitor uses them to
create different colors on the screen by matching each pixel's color
number with the color in the corresponding color register. Each of
the color registers can store one of the 4096 possible combinations
of red, green, and blue that the Amiga is capable of producing, so
you can choose from an extremely large palette to create virtually
any combination of colors to display on the screen.
Although the principal advantage of color registers is that they
provide a wide variety of colors without eating up a lot of RAM,
they have another advantage. When you change the color in a
single color register, every pixel on the screen with the same color
number as that color register also changes color. You can use color
registers this way to test different color combinations easily.
For example, if you use Deluxe Paint to design a fabric pattern
on the Amiga that has little green worms on a purple background,
you might want to try little green worms on an orange background
instead. You don't have to go back to the pattern and take the time
to fill in the background with orange; instead, you display the color
palette on the screen, choose the background color, and change it
SECTION 2: IMAGES
46
from purple to orange using the color-creation sliders on the side of
the palette (you'll see how to do this in the next chapter). Every
purple pixel on the screen turns to orange, and you can see the
results immediately.
The Amiga can put all 4096 colors on the screen at one time
using a special mode called Hold and Modify (known as HAM for
short), which smears the colors horizontally to create very subtle
shading. For example, the Amiga can use HAM to shade a round
red vase to make it look three-dimensional. Where the vase curves
out and catches the light, it would use a bright red. It would then
subtly shade the red, turning it to darker shades where the vase
curves into the shadow. This gives it a smooth, glowing appear
ance. Figure 2-15 shows the full shades of a display using HAM.
Figure 2-15.
An Amiga picture using

the Hold and Modify
(HAM) mode for shading.
(Image courtesy
of NewTek and
Mitchell Lopes)
At the time of this writing, there are no graphics programs that

use HAM, although there will probably be some in the future. There
are some video digitizers for the Amiga that convert an image from
a video camera or other video source into a HAM picture that uses
subtle shading to reproduce the video image.
47
DRAWING PICTURES
The Amiga has special routines in its graphics library that help
draw pictures on the screen. These graphics routines create the
different components of any video picture: They can draw lines, fill
in areas with a specific color or pattern, copy one section of a
picture to another section, change colors, and perform other
important graphics functions.
The graphics routines make use of a special section of the
Agnus chip (one of the three custom chips) called the blitter. Blitter
is short for "bit-mapped block transfer," a mouthful that means it
quickly shuffles around large blocks of data in memory When that
data happens to be in the graphics-display section of the Amiga's
memory, the blitter can draw figures very quickly so you don't have
to wait a long time for a picture to appear on the monitor screen.
The graphics routines are used frequently in Amiga software.
Any of the graphics commands in Amiga BASIC or the drawing
functions m programs like Deluxe Paint use the graphics routines to
accomplish their tasks. Workbench uses the routines to draw icons
and windows on the screen.
CREATING TEXT
Libraries in the Amiga's system software also create characters
so the Amiga can put text on the screen. They use a flexible
system that resembles color registers, but instead of storing a red-
green-blue color combination in each register, it stores the design
for a character. The full set of character designs stored in
memory-including all the characters in the alphabet, numerals,
punctuation marks, mathematical symbols, and other special
charactersis called a font.
As you type characters in at the keyboard, the Amiga uses the
designs it has in memory for the font to create each character it
puts on the screen. If you change a font, the Amiga changes the
designs in all the registers, and any new characters appearing on
the screen use the style of the new font. One font might be blocky
and straight, another flowing and elegant. For example, in a word-
processing program, you can have the Amiga use one font to
display a headline, and use a second font to print a personal
message. Figure 2-16 shows some of the fonts the Amiga uses.
SECTION 2- IMAGES
48
Figure 2-16.
This is topaz 8-peint text.

This is topaz 9-point text, Different character fonts
on the Amiga.
This is ruby 3-poini text.
This is ruby 12-point text.
This is diamond 12-point text.
This is opal H-point kx\.
this is emewiid 20-point

Tfvis is garnet 9-point text,
Tfcs is aorflet 16-poiftt text-,
tfo is stfffor 15-yuittt frxt

tfe is saqqAirr 19-ptt tat
Different fonts are stored on disk until the Amiga needs them,
when they're transferred to RAM to be used to create the text on
display. As software developers design new fonts, you'll be able to
buy them on a floppy disk, load them into the Amiga, and call them
in by name through the program you're using.
Advanced Amiga programmers programming in C or assembly
language can create their own fonts by drawing the pattern for
each character and storing the data on disk. This is very useful for
creating characters for Russian, Greek, Hebrew, or other languages
that use different alphabets. This ability is also handy for creating
special mathematical or logical symbols. Watch for future commer
cially available software that lets non-programmers create their own
fonts, too.
Once a font is loaded in memory, the Amiga can use its system
software to alter the characters for emphasis. It can, for example,
stretch them out twice as wide, italicize them, underline them,
make them thicker, or invert their colors. It can also color the
characters any one of its possible 4096 colors. You can use some of
these effects in word processors like Textcraft and in graphics
programs with text like Deluxe Paint.
49
The Amiga also controls the background of the characters. It can
use the existing picture on the screen as background, or it can
create a contrasting background. Characters with a contrasting
background look like strips of letters pasted on a telegram.
Characters using the existing background blend in with their
surroundings. In Figure 2-17, you can see the characters with both
types of backgrounds.
Figure 2-17.
Characters at the top of

this display are put over
the underlying picture
with their own con
trasting background.
Characters at the bottom
of the display use the

underlying picture for
their background.
SCROLLING PICTURES
The Amiga has several other graphics features currently not
available to anyone but advanced programmers using C or
assembly language. These features let the Amiga store a picture in
memory that is too high and wide to display completely on the
monitor screen at one time. In such a case, the Amiga displays just
one section of the picture at a time, using the monitor screen as a
window on the picture. In Figure 2-18, you can see how this
feature works.
Although you can see only one section of the picture at a time
on the monitor, the Amiga can still bring any section of the picture
into view and so display the entire image in pieces. It can jump
quickly from section to section, or it can smoothly scroll the picture
into view in small increments. This makes the picture look like it's
sliding by under the monitor. The Amiga can scroD a picture at any
speed, fast or slow. It's not limited to up and down or left and right,
but can also scroll diagonally
SECTION 2: IMAGES
50
Figure 2-18.
The Amiga's monitor
serves as a window on a
section of a large picture

stored in the Amiga's
mem ry
A good example of useful scrolling is writing a C program that

stores a map as a large picture m the Amiga's memory. The
monitor shows just a section of the map at one time, but you can
instruct the program to scroll the map north or south, east or west,
to see sections that are off the edge of the screen.
MIXING TWO PICTURES

The Amiga has another useful advanced feature: It can store two
pictures at once in its memory and place one picture on top
of another. When the Amiga overlaps two pictures, it makes one the
foreground picture and the other the background picture. Normally,
the foreground picture completely covers the background picture,
but the Amiga can use a "transparent" color on some of the pixels
in the foreground picture. Any transparent pixel in the foreground
picture lets the background picture show through. Figure 2-19
shows how this works.
Figure 2-19.
The background and
foreground pictures are

stored as separate im
ages in the Amiga's

memory. When these im
ages are displayed, the
Background Foreground Background foreground picture is

and foreground superimposed over the
background picture.
51
Superimposing one picture on top of another makes it easier to
change the images you see on the monitor screen. The background
picture can be used like the backdrop in a theater: It's drawn only
once, and doesn't change on the screen. Any elements of the
monitor display that will change or that move can be drawn in the
foreground picture. Since the Amiga doesn't have to keep changing
the background display as the foreground changes, it has a much
easier task of updating the monitor display, since it only has to re
create the foreground.
Although overlapping pictures is a feature usually available to
advanced programmers using C or assembly language, you can use
overlapping pictures whenever you make a video using the
animation program Deluxe Video (featured in Chapter 11).
PRINTING AN AMIGA PICTURE

As you read earlier, turning a picture on the monitor screen into
a picture printed on paper is no easy task. It requires color and
resolution translation that is different for each printer on the
market. The software that takes care of the translation is called a
printer driver.
The Preferences tool on the Workbench offers you a choice of
about a dozen printer drivers that the system software can use to
match different printers you might connect through the Amiga's
serial or parallel port. You can choose one to match whichever
printer you have connected to your Amiga. As new printers come
out, the manufacturers and Commodore can write new printer
drivers and make them available to you. You can then load the new
drivers through Preferences so that the Amiga can use the new
printers.
Having a printer driver active in the system software versus
having to have one built into each application is very convenient.
Some computer systems force software writers to write their own
printer drivers if they want their application to use a printer. This
forces users to be cautious when they buy new programs that use a
printerwill the program drive the printer they own? If you have
the proper printer driver set for your printer in Preferences, the
Amiga's own software takes care of driving the printer, so software
you buy will work automatically with your printer.
Now you know the basic techniques the Amiga uses to

create and display computer graphics. In the next four
chapters, you'll learn how to create pictures using an
application program, Deluxe Paint, and discover how to
add graphics to your own Amiga BASIC programs.
SECTION 2: IMAGES
52
CHAPTER THREE
AMIGA GRAPHICS
TOOLS
Creating images with a graphics application program is
one of the most enjoyable activities you can pursue with an
Amiga. Graphics applications are now available for users of
all skill levels. They allow you to produce colorful pictures
with ease and speed, and give you the power to create
images of surprising complexity and subtlety. This chapter
features a graphics application called Deluxe Paint, and
introduces you to two more: Graphicraft and Aegis Images.
Deluxe Paint, developed and sold by Electronic Arts, is
one of the most versatile graphics applications programs
available. In this chapter, you'll see how to use the
advanced features of Deluxe Paint. Since Deluxe Paint
includes a manual that describes its individual features,
this chapter doesn't duplicate what you can read there.
Instead, it shows you how to combine those features to
achieve practical results. It also gives you some hints that
will make working with Deluxe Paint as easy as possible.
Later sections in the chapter show you how to print and
photograph your Deluxe Paint images. At the end of the
chapter, you can read about two of the other graphics
programs created for the Amiga, and about hardware that
can make your Amiga images look clear and colorful.
MASTERING DELUXE PAINT
Deluxe Paint shares many features with other graphics pro

grams: You can choose different brush shapes from a menu of
brushes; you can draw circles, squares, lines, and ovals with
special tools; you can use a grid to keep your lines straight and the
objects in your pictures aligned; you can magnify sections of your
picture for detail work, and you can choose from a variety of fonts
to add text to your picture.
Deluxe Paint also has some very powerful features that take it
beyond other graphics programs. It can create pictures in three
different resolutions320-by-200 pixels, 640-by-200 pixels, and 640-
by-400 pixelsand it allows you to design and alter your own
multicolored brushes. Anything you draw on the Deluxe Paint
screen can be selected with the brush-selection tool and used as a
custom brush. Once you have selected a custom brush, you can
create boxes, draw freehand lines, or do anything else with it that
you can do with simpler standard brushes. You can also alter the
brush by changing its size, shape, and color, or by flipping,
rotating, or bending it.
SECTION 2: IMAGES
54
Once you have the brush you want, you can use it in conjunc
tion with different brush modes to add texture or to affect the
colors on the screen in various subtle and unsubtle ways: shading,
blending, and smearing colors, painting with a single color, and
cycling through all the colors on your palette. Using custom brushes
effectively is very important if you want to get the most out of
Deluxe Paint.
Before you do anything with Deluxe Paint, the first thing you
should do is to create a work disk where you can store your Deluxe
Paint pictures.
CREATING A WORK DISK

You don't want to use your Deluxe Paint master disk to store
your own paintings. For one reason, it's already almost full. For
another reason, you should have the write-protect tab on the disk
set to the write-protect position so you don't accidentally erase
something important on the master disk and ruin your copy of
Deluxe Paint. Creating a work disk will give you lots of room for
your own pictures and keep your Deluxe Paint disk safe. It's simple
to do. Just follow these steps:
1. Turn on your Amiga and load Workbench with the Work

bench disk.
2. If you have one disk drive, remove the Workbench disk and
insert a blank disk (or one you don't mind having erased) in
the disk drive. If you have two drives, insert the blank disk
in the external drive.
3. When the icon for the blank disk appears on the Workbench
screen, select it and choose the Initialize command from the
Disk menu, then follow the directions that appear on the
screen to initialize it.
4. When the disk is initialized, double-click the second disk

icon to open it up and look at its contents. You should see a
trashcan there.
5. Open the Workbench disk icon to see its contents. When

it's opened, drag the drawer icon labeled Empty from the
Workbench disk window to the window for your new disk,
to make a copy of the empty drawer on your disk.
6. Once the empty drawer is copied to your new disk, close

the Workbench window, then select the empty drawer icon
on your disk window and choose the Duplicate command
Amiga Graphics Tools
55
from the Workbench menu to duplicate the empty drawer.
Do this twice more to make a total of three copies of the
empty drawer.
7. You should now have four drawer icons in your disk window.
The new icons may be stacked one on top of the other, so
you may have to drag them around to see them all. To name
each drawer, select the icon for the drawer, then choose the
Rename command from the Workbench menu. When the title
strip appears in the middle of the screen, click in the strip to
select it, press the DEL key several times to erase its
contents, then type in a new name and press RETURN when
you're finished- (Use the cursor and BACKSPACE keys to
correct mistakes if you need to.) Name one of the drawers lo
res, another med-res, another hi-res, and the last brush.
8. Select the icon for your disk, choose the Rename command,
and follow the instructions in step 7 to give your disk a
descriptive name.
You now have a Deluxe Paint work disk. When you save pictures
and brushes on this disk from Deluxe Paint, Deluxe Paint will
automatically use the four drawers you just created on the disk. It
stores all your low-resolution pictures in the lo-res drawer, your
medium-resolution pictures in the med-res drawer, and your high-
resolution pictures in the hi-res drawer. It stores your custom
brushes in the brush drawer.
To save you the trouble of having to create another work disk
this way, you can set this one aside as a master empty work disk.
Whenever you want to create a new empty work disk, just copy
your entire work disk master using the directions in the Introduc
tion to Amiga manual.
CHOOSING SCREEN RESOLUTION AND DEPTH

When you boot up your Amiga with Kickstart and then insert
your Deluxe Paint disk, you type the command dpaint at the 1>
prompt and press RETURN. The Amiga then loads Deluxe Paint. It
comes up with a 320-by-200 resolution screen with 32 colors. If you
want to create pictures using different screen resolutions, you can
load Deluxe Paint with a different command. Typing dpaint med
loads a version of Deluxe Paint that uses a 640-by-200 resolution
screen; typing dpaint hi loads a version that uses a 640-by-400
resolution screen. In both the high- and medium-resolution
versions of Deluxe Paint, you get a maximum of 16 colors.
SECTION 2: IMAGES
56
You can also choose the number of colors available to you in
Deluxe Paint when you load the program by choosing the number
of bit planes you want to use for your painting. You'll learn more
about bit planes in Chapter 4. For now, all you need to know is that
the number of bit planes you use determines the number of colors
available to you, and that the more bit planes you use, the more
RAM you use. Five bit planes give you 32 colors, four bit planes give
you 16 colors, three bit planes give you 8 colors, two bit planes give
you 4 colors, and one bit plane gives you 2 colors. To assign bit
planes, just type the number of bit planes you want after the
dpaint load command. For example, to get a version of Deluxe
Paint with a high-resolution screen three bit planes deep (8 colors),
you'd type the command dpaint hi 3. For a low-resolution screen
two bit planes deep (4 colors), you'd type dpaint lo 2.
Why would you want to be able to use different screen resolu
tions and bit-plane depths'? The most important reason is that
you can save the images you create in Deluxe Paint on disk and
then use them with other programs. Some of those other programs
require the images to use a specific resolution and bit-plane
depth. For example, Deluxe Video (an animation program dis
cussed in Chapter 11) uses low-resolution images that are three bit
planes deep.
Another reason for choosing between low- and high-resolution
screens is that there are distinct advantages to both resolutions. If
you paint low-resolution pictures, you get to work with 32 colors. A
wide range of colors in a low-resolution picture can sometimes
make a picture look much more detailed and realistic than a high-
resolution picture using fewer colors. If you paint high-resolution
pictures, the curves and diagonals in your picture will look much
smoother, and you can create finer textures with the thin lines and
greater resolution available. Although the screen flickers slightly in
high-resolution mode (you'D learn why in the next chapter), if you
print or photograph your picture, the flicker is of no consequence.
DESIGNING YOUR OWN PALETTE

After you've loaded Deluxe Paint and before you start painting,
you should take some time to decide on the colors you want to use.
Deluxe Paint has its own set of default colors you can use, but you
might want a different color palette for your particular pictures. For
example, if you're painting a forest scene, a wide range of greens
and browns would be more useful than some of the pinks and
purples in the default palette.
57
To change the colors in the palette, open the palette window
by pressing p on the keyboard. The palette window, shown
in Figure 3-1, appears. You can alter any individual color on the
palette by selecting it with the pointer, and then setting the sliders
to the left of the colors. There are two sets of three slidersyou
can use either set to change a color. The first set, labeled RGB, sets
the red, green, and blue components of the selected color; the
second set, labeled HSV, sets the hue, saturation, and value of the
selected color. Value is Deluxe Paint's term for intensitythe value
slider sets the intensity of the selected color.
Figure 3-1.
The palette window. Color Palette
SPREAD [ lExJCOFYl
RANGE |:iSHDilC2IC3
SPEED
CANCEL UNDO OK
When you change a color using either set of sliders, Deluxe Paint
automatically adjusts the other set of sliders to match the changes
you've made in the color. Which set you use is up to you: RGB is
easier to use if you like to think in terms of mixing primary colors;
HSV is easier to use if you like to choose a hue with the hue slider,
and then lighten and darken it with the saturation and value
sliders. If you aren't familiar with RGB and HSV (frequently called
HIS) color creation, be sure to read Chapter 2.
SECTION 2: IMAGES
58
The five boxes labeled RANGE, SH, C1, C2, and C3 control the four
ranges of colors Deluxe Paint uses when you paint using special
brush modes (more on that later in this chapter). The four different
ranges of colors are the shade range (SH), color-cycle range 1 (C1),
color-cycle range 2 (C2), and color-cycle range 3 (C3). Deluxe Paint
works with the SH range when you use the Blend and Shade brush
modes; it cycles through the colors in the the C1, C2, or C3 ranges
when you use the Cycle brush mode or the Cycle command in the
Picture menu. All these ranges have been presetyou can view any
of them by selecting SH, C1, C2, or C3. A white bracket appears on
the palette to show you what colors are included in the range and
where it begins and ends.
You can change the default range settings to suit your needs. To
change a range of colors, first select which of the four ranges you
want to reset. Next, select any of the colors in the palette as the
starting color in the range, then select RANGE. A TO pointer appears
on the screen. Use it to select any color in the palette as the last
color in the range. The TO pointer will then disappear, and the new
range is set.
The shade range works best when you set it to coincide with a
spread of colors that ranges from dark to light. A good example of
this is the range of grays that are the last 12 colors in Deluxe Paint's
default palette. When you use the Blend and Shade brush modes,
Deluxe Paint can move up and down in this range to darken or
lighten the colors you have on the screen.
When you ask Deluxe Paint to cycle colors, it cycles through the
colors in the selected cycle range, using the speed set for that
range in the SPEED slider located just below the range controls. You
can change the speed of a color cycle by first selecting it and then
setting the SPEED slider.
Since there are three different cycle ranges, you can set one
range inside another range for some very bizarre effects when you
cycle the colors on the screen. If you want to get rid of any range in
the palette, just select the range, select a color, select RANGE, then
use the TO pointer to select the same color againeffectively
creating a one-color range.
When you've set the palette to your taste, you can select the OK
command to apply it, or, if you have second thoughts, you can
select CANCEL to go back to the palette you were using before you
started changing colors or ranges. No matter what changes you've
made, don't worry about losing Deluxe Paint's default palette. You
can always get it back when you need to by choosing Default Palette
from the Picture menu.
59
CREATING PRECISE DRAWINGS
As you use the Deluxe Paint drawing tools, you may find yourself
trying to place line ends, rectangle corners, circle edges, and other
object boundaries in precise locations so they match up with other
objects on the screen. You can always use the magnifier tool to get
a closer look at what you're doing, or you can scrunch up close to
the screen and squint at the individual pixels, but there are easier
ways to click your figures into place.
Positioning the brush with the Coordinates command

One of the easiest ways to position your brush on the screen is
to choose the Coordinates command from the Prefs menu. When you
do, you'll see numbers appear in the right side of the title bar that
give you the location of the pointer that moves your brush. The
numbers measure the distance in pixels from the upper left corner
of the screen to your brush pointerthe left number is the number
of pixels over and the right number is the number of pixels down.
If you note the coordinates when you place the end of a line, the
center of a circle, or the corner of a rectangle on the screen, you
can use the coordinates to start the next figure at the same spot.
For example, say you want to create a series of lines radiating from
a central point. When you draw the first line using the straight-line
tool, you note the coordinates of the beginning of the line, and use
that as your central point. By beginning the other lines at the same
coordinates, you can be sure all your lines will radiate from the
same point.
The coordinates work differently whenever you hold a mouse
button down and drag the cursor across the screen. Instead of
giving the position of the cursor in distance from the upper left
corner of the screen, it gives the distance of the cursor from the
spot where you first pressed the mouse button. If you're creating an
object with a tool, this lets you measure just how large the object
is. For example, when you create a rectangle, if you want to make it
10 pixels wide and 16 pixels high, you can read the coordinates as
you set the opposite corner of the rectangle by moving the pointer
until you get the measurements you want.
Drawing straight lines with the SHIFT key

Another aid to cursor accuracy is the SHIFT key. If you hold
down the SHIFT key while you roll the mouse, Deluxe Paint will
move the brush in a horizontal or vertical direction only, depending
on whether you move the mouse horizontally or vertically while
holding down the SHIFT key If you want to move the brush in the
other direction, you have to release the SHIFT key.
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60
This method is very useful for drawing straight lines or for
moving a brush in a straight line across the screen. For example,
say you want to draw a straight line from one side of the screen to
the other without moving up or down. Select the line-drawing tool,
then move the mouse pointer to the place where you want the line
to begin. Before you press the left mouse button to begin drawing
the line, hold down the SHIFT key. Then hold down the left mouse
button and start rolling the mouse to the side. As you roll, the SHIFT
key keeps the line on a strict horizontal path, even if your hand
moves the mouse up and down as you roll it.
Aligning images with the grid

The grid is even more useful for quickly matching up line ends
and objects. When you select the grid tool on the control panel, it
sets up a grid of invisible lines on the screen, and restricts the
location of the pointer to the intersection of those lines while you
use many of the other tools on the control panel. The grid works
with the dotted freehand-drawing tool by restricting each image of
the brush it puts down to the intersections of the grid. It works
with the straight-line and curve tools by restricting both ends of
the line each createsthe lines must begin and end at grid
intersections. The grid similarly restricts to intersections the
corners of a rectangle that is created with the rectangle tool, and
the center and the borders of shapes that are created with the
circle and oval tools.
If you turn on the grid and begin to draw with these tools, you
can very easily line up the figures they create. For example, if you
want to create a box with a dome on the top, you can turn on the
grid and create the box with the rectangle tool. The grid will limit
its corners to the grid intersections, so the cursor will jump from
intersection to intersection as you move it around the screen. After
you create the box, you can select the curve tool. Since the grid
limits cursor movement to the grid intersections, it's easy to posi
tion the pointer on an upper corner of the boxsimply position the
center of the crosshairs over one corner. Hold down the left mouse
button and drag across the top of the rectangle to the other upper
corner, then release the mouse button. The ends of the curve will
be directly on top of the corners. You can then move the mouse to
bend the curve as you want it.
If the default grid intersections (marking 8-by-8 pixel squares)
are too close together or too far away for your purposes, you can
change the size of the grid by selecting the grid tool with the right
mouse button. A small section of the grid, called the sizing grid,
appears on the screen. The coordinates will appear in the right side
of the menu bar and show you the location of the upper-left corner
of the sizing grid on the screen. By holding down the left button
61
and dragging the mouse, you can change the size of the grid. As
you move the mouse, the coordinates will change to show you how
many pixels wide and high each square of the grid is. Once you've
dragged the grid to the size you want, you can release the left
button. The grid will disappear, and the next time you turn on the
grid tool, the new size will determine where the grid intersections
are located.
By default, the grid is aligned with the top and left boundaries
of the screen, but you can reposition the grid intersections if you
want to. First, select the grid tool with the right mouse button
again. The sizing grid will appear on the screen again, but this
time you will be positioning it on the screen to determine where
the actual grid lines themselves will benot the size of the indi
vidual squares. Place the intersections of the sizing grid where you
want the grid lines to be positioned, then click the left mouse but
ton, and the entire grid is realigned to match the position of the
sizing grid on the screen.
When you use the grid with the text tool, it restricts where you
can place the text cursor with the pointer. Once you start typing,
the letters aren't restricted by the grid, but if you move the text
cursor by clicking elsewhere on the screen, its new position is
restrained by the grid. By stretching the grid to the size you want,
you can use the grid intersections as tab stops and line spacing.
Just type what you want, then relocate the text cursor with the
pointer. The grid makes it easy to line up columns and lines of text.
One of the most useful applications of the grid is in creating
background patterns. You can try it out by first loading the picture
Patterns from the Deluxe Paint disk. In the upper right corner of the
picture are eight patterns in yellow boxes. You can select any one
of those patterns as a custom brush, and then duplicate it all over
the screen using the grid to line up the brushes.
Try it out. Use the brush-selection tool to select the brick pat
tern by selecting all of the pattern inside the yellow box without
including any of the yellow border. If you watch the coordinates as
you set the brush, you'll see that the box is exactly 19 pixels wide
by 11 pixels high. Press j on the keyboard to switch to the other
drawing screen, where you can paint in a blank screen without
covering the other patterns. Now resize the grid so it's one pixel
wider and higher than your brush: Set it to 20 pixels wide by 12
pixels high. Once the grid size is set, turn on the grid, make sure
the brush is set for dotted freehand drawing, and start painting.
Perfectly aligned blocks of the brick pattern will then start to fill
the screen.
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62
Once you fill the entire screen with bricks, try painting other
things on top of the bricks. If you paint something you don't like,
and if clicking UNDO doesn't erase all of it, you won't be able to
erase it using the background color, because the brick background
isn't one single color. Instead, turn on the grid if it isn't already
turned on, then grab any section of brick as a brush and start
painting over what you draw. If you haven't changed the grid since
you laid down the pattern, the brush will erase your figure by filling
it in with new bricks aligned with the old bricks.
THE BRUSH MODES

A lot of the fun in using Deluxe Paint comes from creating
custom brushes by cutting them from a picture already on the
screen, then using the commands in the Brush menu to flip, rotate,
reshape, and recolor the brush until you get exactly the shape and
color you want. Once you have a custom brush, or even a simple
brush selected from the control panel, the brush mode you choose
from the Mode menu determines the way that brush draws on the
screen. The Object, Color, and Replace modes give you some options
for painting with a custom brush. If you want to add texture to
your painting, you can use three other brush modes that affect the
colors already on the screen: Smear. Shade, and Blend. Another brush
mode, Cycle, can be used to create special effects. The following
sections describe each of the different brush modes in detail. You'll
get to try out all the brush modes in a later example section in
this chapter.
The Object mode

Whenever you use the brush-selection tool to create a rectangle
on the screen and copy the contents as a brush, Deluxe Paint
automatically uses the Object brush mode. In the Object mode,
Deluxe Paint looks to see what the current background color is.
Any pixels in the rectangle that are colored with the background
color become transparent in the brush. In other words, the custom
brush rectangle doesn't pick up any background pixels. When you
paint with the brush in Object mode, you paint with all the different
colors in the brush, using the shape of the object you picked up
without background colors.
The Color mode

Once you've created a custom brushfor example, if you draw
a rainbow on a screen with a white background, then use the
brush-selection tool to pick it up as a custom brushDeluxe Paint
automatically uses the arc shape of the rainbow with all its colors
as a brush in the Object mode. Then, if you choose the Color brush
mode, Deluxe Paint will turn the brush you picked up into a
63
silhouette, coloring it with a single color: the current foreground
color. If, in our example, the foreground color is set to green, Deluxe
Paint will use the arc shape of the rainbow, but will fill it with only
one color: green.
The Replace mode

After you've selected a custom brush, another option you have is
the Replace brush mode. In this mode, Deluxe Paint will include all
the background color in the brush that was treated as a transparent
color before. In the custom brush of the last example, the rainbow
would be there with ail its colors, but so would be the background
white that was picked up in the brush-selection rectangle. When
you paint with a custom brush in the Replace mode, you paint with
a full rectangle; the background color is used as well as the other
colors in the brush.
The Smear mode

The Smear mode is the Deluxe Paint equivalent of using your
finger to smear different colors of oil paint together. When you paint
in Smear mode, the brush drags around the pixels already on the
screen, mixing them together. You can use a standard or a custom
brushif you use a custom brush, Deluxe paint uses the same
silhouette shape of brush it would use in Color mode.
The Shade mode

In the Shade mode, the brush affects only pixels whose colors are
included in the shade range on the color palette. All colors outside
the shade range aren't affected by the brush. You can use either a
standard or a custom brush. The custom brush uses only the
silhouette shape of the object in the brush.
If you use the Shade mode, whenever you hold down the left
mouse button and pass the brush over pixels colored with shade*
range colors, the pixels under the brush change to the next color
down in the shade range. If you hold down the right mouse button,
the pixels change to the next color up in the shade range.
If you created a shade range of colors in the palette window that
progresses from dark to light, you can use the left button to lighten
the pixels under the brush and the right button to darken them.
The pixels won't change to any color beyond the ends of the shade
range, so you can't lighten or darken them any further than the
lightest and darkest colors in the shade range.
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64
The Blend mode
The Blend mode works something like the Smear mode: When you
drag the brush in Blend mode over two different colors that are both
in the shade range, the brush drags some of the first color into the
second color. The difference is that in Blend mode, the brush doesn't
just drag pixels of one color into an area of another color: The brush
compares the colors it's dragging to the colors it's passing over, and
lays down a color halfway between the two colors in the shade
range. (If the two colors are adjacent m the shade range, Deluxe
Paint will use the color you started blending from.) When you work
with a shade range that progresses from dark to Sight, this means
that you can use the Blend mode to blur the borders between two
different colors, using all the intermediate shades of color between
them to make a smooth transition from one to the other. This
sounds much more complicated than it really is. If you try the
example later in the chapter, you'll see just how it works.
The Cycle mode

The Cycle mode is great for splashy special effects. When you
paint in the Cycle mode, your brush cycles through all the colors you
set in one of the cycle ranges, and leaves a trail of different colors
on the screen. To choose any one of the three cycle ranges (C1, C2,
or C3), choose any one of the colors in the control panel that belongs
to the cycle range you want, then start painting. You can also set
the speed of the color cycle using the SPEED slider for that color
range in the palette window.
If you use the Cycle mode to create boxes, circles, lines, and other
shapes using the tools on the Deluxe Paint control panel, each
object you create is just one color, but each new object is a new
color in the cycle range.
Once you've painted using cycle-range colors, you can make all
the colors on the screen that are in the cycle range cycle through
the entire range by pressing the TAB keytry it!
EXAMPLES USING THE DIFFERENT BRUSH MODES

Now that you know what the different brush modes do, you can
try some examples that use the brush modes for various effects.
These examples are all fairly simple, but some produce sophisti
cated results that might give you ideas for pictures of your own.
These examples use the lo-res Deluxe Paint mode, so before you try
the examples, you should start the program by typing dpaint at the
1> prompt.
65
Using the Object and Color modes to outline a figure
When you create an object using colors that don't contrast well
with the background color on the screen, you might want to outline
your object with another color to make it stand out. For example, an
orange object on a white background will stand out better if you
outline the object in black. You can always outline your object by
carefully drawing around the edges, but that takes a lot of time if
the object is at all complicated. By selecting the object as a brush
and using the Object and Color brush modes, you can create an
outline for that object in seconds, no matter how complex its shape.
Follow these instructions to try it out:
1. Use the right mouse button to select white as the back

ground color, then select CLR in the control panel to clear the
screen and fill it with white.
2. Choose Load Fonts from the Font menu, then choose a large
font (sapphire-19 works well for this example).
3. Select the text tool, put the text cursor on the screen, and
click to position the text cursor.
4. Choose light blue from the palette, then type a message on

the screen. The message should appear in large light-blue
characters.
5. When you're finished with your message, select the entire set
of characters as a custom brush.
6. Choose Color from the Mode menu, then choose black from the
palette to turn your brush black.
7. Choose Coordinates from the Prefs menu so you can see the
coordinates in the title bar.
8. Select the hollow-rectangle tool (upper left corner of the

rectangle tool).
9. Move the brush to a blank area of the screen, then hold down
the left button and drag down and right until the coordinates
measure 2 by 2 pixels. The result will be a somewhat illegible
set of black blobs on the screen, similar to what you see in
the right half of Figure 3-2.
SECTION 2 IMAGES
66
10. Choose Object from the Mode menu to turn your brush back to
its original light blue color.
11. Position your brush in the middle of the "rectangle" you just
created so you can see the text with a black outline. Click
the left mouse button to copy the brush there. When you
move the brush away, voila! You have light-blue text outlined
in black, something like what you see in the lower part of
Figure 3-2.
Figure 3-2.
The "rectangle" to the

right of the screen was
created by a text brush.
The lower part of the
screen shows the original
text brush positioned in
the middle of the rect
angle to create outlined
text.
12. Select the outlined text as a new custom brush, then save it
to disk. You can use it in a later example.
In this example, when you used your custom brush in the Object
mode, Deluxe Paint always used the original colors (light blue in
this case) that the brush had when you first selected your custom
brush. Once you change your custom brush to Color mode, you can
choose any color you want. (In this example, in step 6 you could
choose any color you wanted to outline your message.) As soon as
you choose the Object mode again, your brush will return to its
original colors.
67
Creating a sandy background with the Smear mode
Most of the tools in the control panel create objects of a single
color If you want to create patterns that mix a lot of different colors
in a small area, you can spend a lot of time trying to do it with
standard tools. For example, consider trying to draw a picture of
beach balls on a sandy beach. Drawing each grain of sand on the
beachalternating light, dark, and in-betweencan be a very
tedious job. You can use a brush in the Smear mode to perform the
job with much more speed and ease.
In this example, make sure that you're using the default palette
with the default setting for the shade range, so it includes the last
12 colors on the palette, ranging from dark gray to light gray. While
these particular colors aren't necessary for this specific example,
you can use these results in a later example that will use this
shade range.
1. Clear the screen.
2. Choose a circular brush with the right mouse button and

size it to 10 by 10 pixels.
3. Pick each of the 12 colors in the shade range and put a dab
of it on the screen so the dabs touch to form a circle, as you
can see in the left side of Figure 3-3.
4. Choose a small circular brush.
5. Choose Smear from the Mode menu, then move the brush to
the center of the dabs, hold down the left mouse button, and
start smearing. Smear in a circular motion from inside the
cluster of dabs so you get a little bit of each color smeared
in the center. The result should look like the right side of
Figure 3-3.
6. Once you have a well-mixed smear in the center, start

smearing from the center toward the edges. This evens out
the texture and makes more of it as you push pixels away
from the center.
7. When you have a fairly large section of sand texture, select

the center of the section as a custom brush, then paint over
the entire screen to fill it with the sand texture. The result
should look like Figure 3-4.
8. Save your screen to your data disk as a picture by choosing

the Save As... command from the Picture menu. You'll use the
sand background for a later example.
SECTION 2: IMAGES
68
Figure 3-3.
The colors on the left

side of the screen are
dabs of color about to be
smeared. The right side
of the screen shows the
colors after smearing.
Figure 3-4.
A screen full of sand

texture.
69
Creating rainclouds with the Blend mode
If you've ever looked at rainclouds, you'll notice that they have a
wide range of graysfrom light gray to very dark gray where rain
is pouring down from them. If you want to create closely shaded
clouds with Deluxe Paint, you can use a brush in Blend mode to
create a wide range of grays from just two original shades.
1. Clear the screen. (The background should still be white.)
2. Open the palette window, make sure the 12 shades of gray at

the end of the palette are the only 12 colors in the shade
range, then close the palette.
3. Create a filled box in the upper third of the screen using the
darkest gray in the shade range.
4. Create a second filled box in the lower two-thirds of the

screen using the lightest gray in the shade range. The result
should look like the left side of Figure 3-5.
5. Pick the largest circular brush in the control panel (the one to
the far right), then choose Blend from the Mode menu.
6. Move the brush to the dark area in the upper third of the
screen, hold the left mouse button down and slowly move the
brush down and slightly toward the right into the light area
of the screen. The dark area should smear and blend into the
light area. Repeat the stroke many times, working across the
border between the two shades of gray to create a rainy look.
7. To add a tornado coming from the clouds, continually streak

down from one spot in the clouds. Each stroke should extend
the dark clouds lower into the light area. Keep stroking down
in a curve to the bottom of the screen to create a funnel
cloud. The final result should look like the right half of the
screen in Figure 3-5.
SECTION 2: IMAGES
70
Figure 3-5.
The two gray shades

shown m the left half of
the screen are blended
with a brush in the Blend
mode to create the rain-
clouds and the tornado
shown in the right half of
the screen.
Using the Shade mode to create a shadow

The Deluxe Paint manual explains how to create a quick drop
shadow for an object: You simply pick the object up as a brush,
choose Color from the Mode menu, choose black as the color, and
put a copy of the black brush on the screen as a shadow for the
original object. Then choose Object from the Mode menu and place
the original object just above and to one side of its "shadow."
You can also use the Shade mode to create a more realistic
shadow on a complex background if you created the background
using colors graduated from light to dark in the shade range, as we
did with the sandy-beach background example. This creates
shadows that aren't just pitch blackthey're the original back
ground, darkened so you see a shadow over the original design of
the background.
In the following example, you can create a shadow for the
outlined words created in a previous example, on a sand
background saved in another previous example.
1. Load the sand background you created earlier and saved as a

picture.
2. Load the outlined text you created and saved as a brush.
71
3. Put the brush on the screen wherever you want to place
the text.
4. Choose Shade from the Mode menu. The brush shows on the
screen as a lighter shade of sand in the shape of your letters.
5. To darken the sand underneath the brush, click the right

mouse button six times without moving the mouse. The sand
gets darker with each click. When you move the brush off the
darkened area, it looks even darker, since the brush in Shade
mode always makes the area under it look one shade lighter
so you can see where the brush is.
6. Choose Object from the Mode menu. The brush will appear as
the original outlined letters. Place them just above and to the
left of the shadow, then click the left mouse button to copy
the letters there. The results should look like Figure 3-6. If you
look closely at the shadow, you can still see the grains of
sand, although they're darkened.
Figure 3-6.
Letters floating above a

shadow m the sand cre
ated with a brush in the
Shade mode
You can use this shadow method on any background textured

using the Shade mode. You can use backgrounds of woodgrain,
metallic grids, fields of grassanything that uses a range of colors
with the same hue.
SECTION 2: IMAGES
72
EASY TRICKS
As you use Deluxe Paint, you'll find many shortcuts and neat
tricks to heip you create pictures. To start you off right, here are
three tricks that you may find useful.
Use the keyboard shortcuts

At the back of the Deluxe Paint manual is a list of keyboard
shortcuts you can use in lieu of choosing tools from the control
manual and commands from the menus. Open the manual to that
page and lay it next to your workspace, and take the time to
memorize the key shortcuts as you work. It's well worth the trouble.
You'll find your work goes much faster when, for example, you can
press the x key on the keyboard to reverse a brush on the screen,
instead of opening the Brush menu, selecting Flip, and then
selecting Horiz.
An added benefit of using keyboard shortcuts is that you can
turn off the control panel and the title strip, so you can use the full
screen to paint your pictures. Then, since you need only the
keyboard to use the shortcuts, you won't have to continually turn
the panel and strip back on to change brushes or choose new tools
and colors.
Most of the keyboard shortcuts aren't difficult to remember;
they're letters that usually stand for something, like b for the brush
tool. The function keys at the top of the keyboard are another
matter. To help you use them, you can make a function-key strip.
Just above the function keys on the keyboard is a small indentation
in the plastic: this is designed to hold a function-key strip. Just cut
a piece of paper or cardboard to the right size to lay in the inden
tation, then write a label on the strip above each function key to
remind you what the key does.
Put the monitor on its side

Since the Deluxe Paint screen is wider than it is tall, it's easy to
fall into a rut and create pictures that are always wider than they
are tall. Change the proportions of your workspace by turning your
monitor on its side. Although it might take a little while to get used
to keeping your mouse turned sideways as you roll it, and to pulling
menus from the side of the screen instead of the top, you'll find that
working on a screen that's taller than it is wide gives you a fresh
perspective. If you print your Deluxe Pamt pictures vertically on a
sheet of paper (see the "Printing Deluxe Paint pictures" section
later in this chapter for details), you have the added advantage of
being able to see the full length of paper on the screen.
73
Copy pictures from magazines onto acetate
If you're not the greatest freehand sketch artist in the world, or if
you are but want to save yourself some work, you can use sheets of
.002 weight clear acetate (available in most art stores), a fine felt-tip
marker, and some magazines to good advantage. If you lay the ace
tate on a magazine picture, you can trace the image on the acetate
with the felt-tip marker. When you're finished, tape the acetate to
your monitor screen, and follow the traced lines with the Deluxe
Paint cursor to copy the image to the screen. As long as you work
alone behind closed doors, no one but you will know your secret.
PRINTING DELUXE PAINT PICTURES
If you have a printer attached to your Amiga that will print

graphics, you can print any picture created with Deluxe Paint by
choosing the Print command from the Picture menu. Deluxe Paint
then sends the data for your picture to the printer driver that was
loaded with the Amiga's system software when you first inserted
the Deluxe Paint disk. The printer driver translates the picture data
into a stream of data that prints out your picture.
Although you don't have any control from within Deluxe Paint
over the way your picture is printed, you can get quite a variety of
different printouts from the same picture by changing different
aspects of the printer driver from within the Preferences program.
USING THE PREFERENCES PROGRAM

To use the Preferences program, you need to type the command
preferences at the 1> prompt you see when you boot the Deluxe
Paint disk (called the CLI screen) instead of typing dpaint to load
Deluxe Paint. If you're already using Deluxe Paint and want to use
Preferences, you must save your current picture and then quit
Deluxe Paint to return to the CLI screen, where you can type
preferences to load the Preferences program.
The Change Printer screen

The first Preferences screen that appears doesn't affect the
printer driver at all. To switch to another screen where you can
change the printer driver, select the box labeled Change Printer. The
screen you see in Figure 3-7 appears on your monitor.
SECTION 2: IMAGES
74
Figure 3-7.
The Change Printer

screen.
The settings you see in this screen are described in the

Introduction to Amiga manual that comes with your Amigayou
can read the manual to learn how they work. These settings are
designed to aid in printing text, but some of them affect the way
graphics are printed as well. The following explanations will help
you use them for your picture printouts.
The Margin box in the lower left corner of the screen lets you set
the margins of your printout. It measures the distance in characters
from the left edge of the paper to the left and right borders (called
margins in this box) of your printout. The spacing between the
characters is set in the Pitch box to the right of the Margin box. The
Pica setting chooses characters that measure 10 per inch, the Elite
setting chooses 12 characters per inch, and the Fine setting chooses
15 characters per inch.
You can use these left and right border settings to determine the
size of your picture. First, determine the width of your paper in
characters, then determine where you want each border of the
picture to appear. For example, if you use standard 8V2 inch paper
and you have the pitch set to 10 characters per inch, this means
your paper would measure 85 characters across with no margins. If
you want your picture to measure 7z inches across so it haste inch
of blank space on each side of it, then you would set the left
75
margin at 5 characters (Vz inch from the left side of the paper) and
the right margin at 80 characters (8 inches from the left side of the
paper and/2 inch from the right side of the paper).
When the printer driver sends your picture to the printer, it keeps
the height in proportion to the width you set. If you print a picture
using the above settings, it will look like the picture on the paper in
the left half of Figure 3-8. If you reset the margins to 5 and 40,
halving the width, when you print the picture the height is also
halved, as shown in the right half of Figure 3-8.
Figure 3-8.
The picture on the left

sheet was printed with
margin settings of 5 and
80. The picture on the
nght sheet was printed
with margin settings of 5
and 40-effectively quar
tering the size of the
image.
The Graphic Select screen

The Change Printer screen lets you choose a printer driver and set
the size of your paper and your printout. If you want to control the
aspect and color of your printout, choose the box on the screen
labeled Graphic Select. The screen you see in Figure 3-9 will appear.
The Introduction to Amiga manual describes the settings in this
screen, but one setting can use a little further explanation to help
you control the size of your picture printout.
In the Aspect box in the center left of the screen, you can choose
between printing your picture horizontally or vertically. If you
choose Horizontal, the picture will print out on the paper as you see
in the left side of Figure 3-10. If you choose Vertical, the picture will
print out as you see in the right side of Figure 3-10.
SECTION 2: IMAGES
76
Figure 3-9.
The Graphic Select

screen.
Figure 3-10.
On the left is a horizontal

printout; on the right is a
vertical printout of the
same picture.
The two examples in Figure 3-10 use the same margin settings.
Notice that the margin settings control the width of whichever side
of the picture goes from left to right. This means that a vertical
picture will be larger than a horizontal picture printed with the
same margin settings, as you can see in Figure 3-10.
77
Once you've set the graphics settings as you like them, you can
select OK to return to the Printer Change screen, where you can select
OK to return to the first Preferences screen. Once there, if you want
to use your new printer settings without changing your default
printer settings, you can select Use, which will put them into effect
without saving them to disk. If you want to save your new settings
as the default printer settings, select Save, which will put them into
effect and also save them to disk so that the next time you boot
Deluxe Paint, these settings will automatically go into effect with
out your having to set them again using the Preferences program.
PHOTOGRAPHING AMIGA IMAGES
Photographing a painting on the Amiga monitor screen is quite

simple. All you need is a camera (preferably 35mm or larger), a
tripod, a cable shutter release, and a dark room (that is, a room that
is dark, not a room for developing pictures). If you have a low-power
telephoto lens (an 80mm lens for a 35mm camera, for example), it
will help your photo, although it's not necessary
Set your camera up on the tripod, and position it so the monitor
screen fills the entire frame when you look through the viewfinder.
Make sure the camera points directly at the monitor screenif it's
aiming at an angle, that will distort the picture. If you have a low-
power telephoto lens, you can move further back from the screen
than you could with a normal lens, and still fill up the viewfinder
frame. By moving back, you reduce the amount of barrel-like
distortion you get from the curvature of the monitor screen.
Once you have the camera positioned and ready, load the Deluxe
Paint painting you want to photograph. Choose the one dot brush
from the control panel, then choose a color used in your picture.
Press the F8 key to make the crosshairs disappear, then move the
dot over a pixel of the same color so it disappears from view. Press
the F10 key to make the title strip and control panel disappear, and
you're ready to shoot.
Before you turn out all the lights in the room, give the glass over
the monitor screen a quick wipe with a cloth and some window
cleaner to make sure it's clean. Turn out all the lights. Set the
shutter speed of the camera to 1/15 of a second or slower, then
adjust the f-stop to get the proper exposure. Use the cable release
to click the shutter so you don't jiggle the camera and cause
blurring at the low shutter speed you're using. Voiia! You're
finished. All you need to do now is have the film developed.
SECTION 2: IMAGES
78
OTHER AVAILABLE GRAPHICS SOFTWARE
Deluxe Paint is not the only graphics application program

available for the Amiga. Several other programs also make use
of the Amiga's superb graphics to help you create and print out
pictures. If you are interested in a graphics program for the Amiga,
you should take a look at Graphicraft and Aegis Images as well as
Deluxe Paint, and choose the one that fits your style of creation.
GRAPHICRAFT
Graphicraft is a graphics program marketed by Commodore-
Amiga. Although you cannot create multicolored custom brushes
or work on a high-resolution screen with Graphicraft, you can still
use it to create excellent pictures. It just takes a little more time
to do it.
One good reason for buying Graphicraft, or at least looking
at it, are the sample pictures that come with it. They take full
advantage of Graphicraft's ability to cycle colors to create beating
hearts, storming weather maps, and flying hot dogs. If you take the
time to learn how these pictures work, you can then create some
very sophisticated animation using any graphics program that can
cycle colors.
AEGIS IMAGES
Aegis Images is a graphics program that is sold together with
Aegis Animator, a video-animation program. You can use the
pictures you create in Images as objects to animate m Animator.
Although Images does not offer custom multicolored brushes
and different screen resolutions, it has other special features. Where
the power of Deluxe Paint is in selecting multicolored custom
brushes and building pictures with them, Images concentrates on
the versatile use of monochrome brushes.
You can use the Images brushes to paint with single colors
or with multicolored patterns, and you can use them with a wide
variety of object-producing tools, such as parallelogram and tri
angle tools. You can alter the way any tool works to get some very
effective results. For example, you can set any of the tools so the
last point of one object will be the first point in the next object you
create; in this way, the objects you create will be chained together.
Images also has brush effects similar to Smear, Shade, and Blend
in Deluxe Paint. "Transparency" and "glow" are two of these.
Other features are "pantograph" and "under," which allow you to
copy an image with strokes of a brush or to paint one color under
other colors already on the screen.
79
THE IFF GRAPHICS STANDARD
One thing that Deluxe Paint, Graphicraft, and Aegis Images
have in common is that they all save their picture files to disk using
the IFF graphics standard. IFF stands for Interchange File Format.
It's a standard that was developed by Electronic Arts in collabora
tion with Commodore-Amiga, to make sure that files saved by one
program can be used by another program. There are IFF standards
for graphics, for music, for sound, for text, and for a wide range of
other types of data that can be saved to disk or transmitted. IFF
standards are designed to go beyond working with different
programs on the same computerthey're also designed to work
with different computers.
Software developers have to use the IFF standard, or their
programs won't be able to use files from other programs that were
saved using the IFF standard. Fortunately most software developers
for the Amiga are adhering to the standard at Commodore-Amiga's
urging. What this means for you is that you can take a picture
saved by Graphicraft, Deluxe Paint, or Aegis Images and toad it
into any Amiga graphics program that uses the IFF standard. For
example, if you like some features of Deluxe Paint and other fea
tures of Images, you can create a picture on Deluxe Paint, save it,
and then load it into Images for some touch-up work using images'
special features.
GRAPHICS HARDWARE FOR THE AMIGA
If you're using your Amiga extensively for graphics, then it's

worthwhile to make sure you're using hardware that brings out the
best in the Amiga's graphic capabilities. The following sections list
types of graphics hardware for your Amiga, along with some rec
ommendations to help you choose the equipment that's right for you.
MONITORS
The piece of graphics hardware you probably spend the most
time with is the monitor you use with your Amiga. If you're using a
monochrome monitor or a composite video monitor and want to
upgrade your picture by buying an RGB monitor, there are several
things to consider as you shop.
There are two types of RGB monitors: analog and digital. Digital
RGB monitors are the type most commonly used with the IBM PC,
so they're easy to find. Your Amiga can display pictures on a digital
RGB monitor, but a digital RGB monitor can only display 16 different
colors, severely limiting the colors you can use with your Amiga.
An analog RGB monitor can display a full range of colorsit's the
best RGB monitor for working with color graphics.
SECTION 2: IMAGES
80
Many different analog RGB monitors are available. To make sure
you find one that works well with your Amiga, be sure that the
monitor has at least 400 lines of vertical resolution to display the
Amiga's high-resolution pictures with accuracy. You should also
check the dot pitch of the monitor; the smaller the dot pitch, the
clearer the picture on the screen. An average RGB monitor might
have a dot pitch of around .4 mm. An exceptionally clear monitor
might have a dot pitch of around .28 mm.
If your budget precludes spending a good chunk of money on a
monitor just for your computer, you might consider getting a TV set
that will display analog RGB signals from your Amiga. That way
when you're finished with your computer work, you can watch your
favorite TV programs. One example of this type of TV/monitor is the
SonyKV1311.
Another alternative is to buy any of the many video monitors on
the market designed to work with a component video system that
also includes an input for an analog RGB signal. They usually don't
have a tuner built into them, but most will accept a signal from a
VCR, so you can use the tuner built into your VCR to receive
television programs. One advantage to a video monitor like this is
size: Some of them have a screen size as large as 25 or 26 inches, a
real advantage if you're displaying Amiga images in a storefront, or
even if you just like to sit back in a sofa and play larger-than-life
video games.
PRINTERS
A color printer is very important if you want to make copies of
your Amiga images on paper. The Amiga's system software has
printer drivers for three different color printers: the Okimate 20, the
Epson JX-80, and the Diablo C-150. You can use other color printers,
but you must have a printer driver for them before they will work
with the Amiga.
The Okimate 20 printer

The Okimate 20 printer, manufactured by Okidata, is a low-cost
color printer. It's a thermal dot-matrix printer: It uses a colored
waxed ribbon and a thermal print head to burn the color from the
ribbon onto the paper. As a result, the colors are well saturated
(that is, they look bold, not faint).
There are several drawbacks to the Okimate 20. It uses a ribbon
quickly, since it can only print the length of a ribbon once, and then
the ribbon must be replaced. The registration of the print head isn't
always exact; the pictures it creates sometimes have horizontal
bands of white separating each pass of the print head in the
picture. Nevertheless, for a printer as inexpensive as the Okimate
20, it's a good value for the money.
81
The Epson JX-80 printer
The Epson JX-80 is an impact dot-matrix printer that uses a
multicolored inked ribbon to strike against paper to print colors.
The JX-80 is probably the best text printer of the three color
printers, since it can produce near letter-quality text if you add a
special chip to it. It can use almost any kind of paper you can feed
into it, and it will use one ribbon over and over again until it runs
out of ink.
The main disadvantage of a JX-80, like most color impact dot-
matrix printers, is that the color saturation you get from an inked
ribbon on standard paper is poor; the printed images look washed
out, compared to what you see on the screen. The advantage is
that you can use the JX-80 for word processing as well as printing
graphics, and it's affordable.
The Diablo C-150 and Xerox 4020 printers

If you're serious about printing your color graphics on paper, you
should consider using a Diablo C-150 inkjet printer, manufactured
by Xerox, or the Xerox 4020 printer, an improved color inkjet printer
that uses the C-150 printer driver. You do have to be serious about
it, because these printers are relatively expensive. What do you get
for the money? Extremely vivid colors and detailed accuracy.
The inkjet printers spray colored ink on a special clay-coated
paper that doesn't absorb and spread ink. Since the ink dots are
tiny, you get very fine resolution. The inks are comparatively thick
and don't sink into the paper, so the printed colors are very well
saturated. You can also use clear acetate in these inkjet printers to
create colored transparencies, so you can use an Amiga graphics
program to create and print business graphics for a presentation on
an overhead projector.
These two inkjet printers aren't for everyone. They really aren't
practical for word processing, because even though they can
produce some beautiful-looking characters, you can print them only
on clay-coated paper or acetate, not great media for business
letters or other correspondence. The C-150 takes some maintenance
to keep it producing clean color pictures; you have to rinse out the
inkjet nozzles and occasionally clear trapped bubbles from the ink
lines. The 4020 is much easier to maintain, and also produces color
with greater saturation than the C-150. Despite the maintenance
and cost considerations, these inkjet printers are the best printers
to have if you plan to use your color printouts for more than
curiosities.
SECTION 2: IMAGES
82
THE AMIGA LIVE! FRAMEGRABBER
If you want to add some pictures from real life to your collection
of Amiga images, you can use the Amiga LIVE! framegrabber to
turn images from a video camera, TV, VCR, another computer, or
any other video source into a low-resolution Amiga image.
The Amiga LIVE! framegrabber plugs into the expansion bus on
the right side of the Amiga. On the side of the Amiga LIVE! box is
an NTSC jack where you can plug in a standard video cable to
carry a picture from another video source (like a video camera).
When you turn on the Amiga, you boot a disk containing the
Amiga LIVE! driver, the software that reads the images from the
framegrabber. When the driver is loaded, you see the images that
the framegrabber produces on your monitor screen.
Amiga LIVE! is a real-time framegrabber. That means that at
least 12 times a second it can take a video picture and convert it to
a 320-by-200 Amiga picture. If the source is a moving picture, you
see the result as a series of moving Amiga pictures on the screen.
You can at any point freeze the picture on the screen. Amiga LIVE!
can capture pictures from video in color using 32 colors, or in black
and white using 16 levels of gray You can then save those pictures
to disk, and since the software will save them using the IFF
standard, you can load your picture into an IFF graphics program
and alter them later.
Amiga LIVE! can act as more than just a still-picture digitizer.
Since it operates in real time, and since the Amiga simultaneously
puts its images out through the NTSC port on the back of the
Amiga console, you can feed the digitized images from Amiga
LIVE! into a VCR connected to the NTSC port to create your own
special-effects videos. Amiga LIVE! acts as an image processor to
freeze frames, alter colors, and create many of the special effects
you see in other video-based productions such as music videos.
You've now been able to try some of Deluxe Paint's

advanced features, and you've learned how to print and
photograph your creations. You've also had a look at some
of the other graphics programs on the market for the
Amiga. If you're a BASIC programmer, or if you're curious
about some of the more technical aspects of Amiga
graphics, read on through the next three chapters on
Amiga BASIC graphic statements.
83
CHAPTER FOUR
AMIGA BASIC
GRAPHICS:
SCREENS,
WINDOWS, AND
PALETTES
Microsoft's Amiga BASIC has a full set of graphics
commands that let you design effective pictures with your
BASIC programs. You can use the graphics commands to
create your own screens and windows, then fill those
windows with shapes, colors, and text. You can display
data with colors and shapes instead of numbers, ask for
input from the user in visually irresistible ways, and add
visual pizzazz just for fun.
In the next three chapters, you'll learn how to use the
Amiga BASIC graphics commands. This chapter concen
trates on the commands you need to create your own
windows, screens, and color palettes. Chapter 5 explains
how to draw lines and create shapes in different colors.
Chapter 6 shows you how to add text to your graphics,
make your graphics adapt to changing window sizes, and
cut and paste sections of graphics.
AN INTRODUCTION TO AMIGA BASIC
If you haven't used Amiga BASIC before, you might find that its
unique features take a little getting used to. Unlike most versions of
BASIC, Amiga BASIC doesn't need line numbers. Another difference
is that it uses two different windows for separate activitiesone
window to enter the program, the other to display the results. To
help you use the program examples in the following chapters, this
short introduction shows you how to enter, run, and stop Amiga
BASIC programs. The tutorial is not intended to teach you BASIC
programmingthat's a large job best left to a beginning BASIC
book or a teacherbut it will help start you out painlessly. If you
want more specific information about using Amiga BASIC, you can
find it in the user's manual that comes with the program.
THE LIST AND OUTPUT WINDOWS

To start Amiga BASIC, you open the Amiga BASIC icon just as
you would any othei icon: You point to it with the pointer and
double-click the Select button on the mouse. After a few seconds,
two windows appear on the screen: the List window and the
Output window, shown in Figure 4-1. The List window is titled
LIST, and the Output window is titled (for now at least) BASIC. The
Output window's title bar shows the title of the program currently
in memory. Since you have no program loaded now, it displays
BASIC. As soon as you load a program from a disk or save a new
program under any name, the Output window's title bar will show
the name of the program.
SECTION 2: IMAGES
86
Figure 4-1
odore Anigs The Amiga BASIC List

jfersiss^i.88 - and Output windows.
CreatelSct. 23,^385
Copyright Cc) 1985
by Hicposoft Corp.
224516 Bytes free in Systen
25881 Bytes freed; n BASICS
These two windows keep the lines of the BASIC program and the
results of the program separate. You enter and store the program
lines in the List window. When you run the program, any vrsible
results that occur, such as text printouts or graphics, usually
appear in the Output window.
ENTERING A PROGRAM IN THE LIST WINDOW

To enter a program in the List window, you must select the
window by moving the pointer inside it and clicking the Select
button. A vertical cursor line then appears at the upper left corner
of the window. Enter the program by typing it in line by line, and
pressing the RETURN key at the end of each line. Since you don't
need to use line numbers, it's important to keep the lines in the
correct order.
If you come to the right edge of the List window before you
finish entering a long line, the contents of the window will
automatically scroll left to let you continue entering the line. As
soon as you press RETURN, the contents will scroll back to the left
edge of the program lines. The contents of the window will likewise
scroll up when you reach the bottom of the window.
You can correct mistakes and make changes in the program by
moving the cursor back to the lines you've aiready entered. The four
cursor keys move the cursor over the program listing without
altering any characters underneath it. You can also use the mouse
pointer to move the cursor by simply pointing to the spot where
you'd like the cursor to appear and clicking the Select button. When
Amiga BASIC Graphics: Scieens, Windows, and Palettes
87
you get to the text you'd like to change, just start typing to insert
new text, or use the BACKSPACE key to erase characters before the
cursor. You can also delete text by dragging over it with the mouse
to highlight it, then pressing the BACKSPACE key.
SCROLLING THROUGH A PROGRAM LISTING

If your program has more lines than you can view in the List
window at one time, you can scroll through the listing a page at a
time by holding down one of the SHIFT keys and pressing the up or
down cursor key, or you can jump to the beginning or end of the
program by holding down one of the ALT keys and pressing the up
or down cursor key. If you can't see the entire length of the program
lines, you can make the List window wider by dragging it left, then
using the sizing gadget in the lower right corner to stretch it out to
the right. If you still can't see the full length of the lines, use SHIFT
with the left or right cursor key to scroll left or right a full window
at a time, or ALT with the left or right cursor key to scroll to the end
or beginning of a line.
RUNNING A PROGRAM
Once you've entered a program, you can run it by choosing Start
from the Run menu. The List window disappears, and the results
appear in the Output window (if they're text or graphics). When
the program is finished, the List window reappears. If the program
doesn't stop by itself, you can stop it by choosing Stop from the
Run menu, or by pressing the right Amiga key together with the
period {.} key, or by holding down CTRL and pressing C. If the List
window doesn't automatically appear after the program stops
running, you can choose Show List from the Windows menu, or use
the keyboard shortcut and press the right Amiga key together with
the L key to make it reappear.
ENTERING IMMEDIATE COMMANDS IN THE OUTPUT WINDOW

If you select the Output window by clicking in it, you can also
enter Amiga BASIC statements there. Instead of storing the
statements as it does in the List window, Amiga BASIC executes
each statement line that you enter in the Output window as soon
as you press the RETURN key. This makes each statement an
immediate statement, since you see its results immediately. You
can use the Output window to test the effects of individual
commands before putting them in a program.
SAVING A PROGRAM
If you want to save a program that you've written, just choose
Save from the Project menu. Amiga BASIC will prompt you for a
name. Click in the box to get a cursor, then type the name in and
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88
press RETURN; your program will be saved on disk as a BASIC file.
You'll see the title of the program appear in the title bar of the
Output window. As you modify the program, you can continue to
use Save. Each time you choose it, Amiga BASIC will save the
program in its current state under the same name, overwriting the
oid version already on the disk. To save an existing program under
a different name, choose Save As from the Project menu and type in
another name. The name displayed in the Output windows title
bar will change to the new name, and the old file will remain
untouched on disk.
To load a program from disk, choose Open from the Project menu,
click in the box, then enter the name of the program and press
RETURN. If the program you're working on hasn't been saved in its
current state, you will be warned and given the opportunity to
either save or throw out the changes. After that, Amiga BASIC will
erase the program that is currently in the List window and replace
it with the program you chose. The same is true if you choose New
to begin entering a program from scratch.
LEAVING BASIC
When you want to leave BASIC to get back to the Workbench,
you can quit Amiga BASIC by choosing Quit from the Project menu,
or by closing both the List and Output windows by selecting their
close gadgets. If you just want to see the Workbench without
quitting BASIC (to see how full the disk is, for example}, you can
select the back gadgets on both the List and Output windows to
put them behind the other windows on the Workbench. Once
you've seen what you want to see, you can bring the List and
Output windows back to the foreground by selecting their front
gadgets, or by selecting the back gadgets on the other Workbench
windows. In some cases, you may have to choose Show List from the
Windows menu to see the List window again.
AN INTRODUCTION TO SCREENS, WINDOWS,

AND PALETTES
As you may recall from Chapter 2, the Amiga creates its

graphics using pixels, or tmy "picture elements." If you look closely
at any picture or text on the Amiga's monitor, you can see the
pixels: They're the small, squarish building blocks that make up the
images. To build an object on the monitor screen, the Amiga sets
the color of individual pixels in the shape of the object. When you
see those pixels from a distance of more than a few inches, they
combine to appear as one object.
Amiga BASIC Graphics: Screens, Windows, and Palettes
89
The size of the pixels the Amiga uses to build images deter
mines the resolution of the picture. In a high-resolution picture,
the pixels are small and not easily seen, so you can create curves
and diagonal lines that appear fairly smooth. In a low-resolution
picture, the pixels are larger and more evident; diagonals and
curves have a distinct jagged look, and you can see the indi
vidual pixels more easily.
SCREENS
The Amiga offers four different resolution modes for displaying
graphics and text on the monitor. You choose any of the resolutions
and work with it by creating a screen (explained in the SCREEN
statement section in this chapter). You can have up to five screens
on the monitor at one time, and each can have its own resolution
mode. Each Amiga screen extends across the full width of the
monitor screen and has a title bar at the top (you can create a
screen that is not displayed across the full width, but it will
"command" the entire width of the screen). You can gjab the title
bar with the pointer and drag the screen up and down on the
monitor by holding down the Select button of the mouse and rolling
the mouse forward and back. This reveals the screen immediately
behind the current screen (if any), and you can then grab that
screen's title bar and move it up and down.
The screen's title bar is also used to display menus. When you
press and hold down the Menu button of the mouse, the titles of
the menus appear in the title bar. You can make an individual menu
appear by pointing to the menu title with the pointer while the
Menu button is still depressed.
The title bar also includes back and front gadgets in the right
corner. If there is more than one screen on the monitor at one time,
those screens are layered, one covering another. Selecting the left
(back) gadget moves that screen behind any other screens, and
selecting the right (front) gadget moves that screen in front of any
screens on the monitor.
A good example of a screen is the Workbench screen. When you
first boot the Amiga, the Workbench screen appears with Workbench
release 1.1 (or something similar) in the title bar and the icons for any
disks you have in the drives. You can drag the screen up and down
SECTION 2: IMAGES
90
by pointing to the title bar with the pointer, holding down the
Select button, and rolling the mouse forward and back. If you try
the back and front gadgets, nothing happens because there aren't
any other screens on the monitor at this point. When you press the
Menu button on the mouse, you get the Workbench menus in the
title bar. You can see the Workbench screen, complete with
gadgets, in Figure 4-2 (on the next page).
WINDOWS
Screens provide areas of different resolution on the monitor.
Within each screen, windows provide clearly defined areas of
activity. If you want to create graphics or put text on a screen, you
must do it within a windowyou can't put graphics or text on a
screen without a window. Windows share the same resolution and
colors as the screen they belong to, so you can't create windows
with different resolutions or colors on the same screen.
Unlike screens, windows don't have to extend across the full
width of the monitor. They can be almost any size, as long as
they fit within the screen they're on. Each window has its own
boundaries, and can include an optional title bar at the top. The
title bar can show the name of the window, and can also include
three optional gadgets: the close gadget, the back gadget, and the
front gadget. Selecting the close gadget will make the window
disappear from the screen. Selecting the back gadget will move the
window behind any other windows on the screen; selecting the
front gadget will move the window m front of any other windows
on the screen.
In the lower right corner of the window is an optional sizing
gadget. By pointing to the sizing gadget, holding down the Select
button on the mouse, and then rolling the mouse, you can change
the size of the window. Also, if the window has a title bar and is
smaller than the screen, you can move the entire window around
within the boundaries of the screen by pointing to the window's
title bar, holding down the Select button, and rolling the mouse.
If you open the Workbench disk icon on the Workbench screen
as shown in Figure 4-2. you can see a good example of a window
with all the gadgets, the title bar, and full mobility. You can drag it
around to any spot on the screen, resize it, and close it if you wish.
If you drag the Workbench screen up and down on the monitor, all
the windows it contains will move with it.
Amiga BASIC Giaphics: Screens, Windows, and Palettes
91
Figure 4-2
A window on the Work

bench screen showing
the contents of the Work
bench disk.
PALETTES
Each screen on the Amiga monitor also has its own set of colors,
called a palette. The palette for each screen can have up to 32
different colors. You can choose each of the colors in the palette
from a total of 4096 different colors, so it's possible to create a
unique palette for each screen. The procedures for changing the
colors in the palette from BASIC are explained later in this chapter.
The Amiga uses the colors in the palette to color all the pixels in
its screen and any windows on that screen that use those colors.
For example, the first color in the palette is used to color the
background of the screen and its windows, and the second color is
used to fill in the boundaries of the windows and the title bars. The
last two colors in the palette are used to create inverse colors that
appear when you select any menu item.
When you first boot the Workbench, you see a blue background
with white window borders and title bars (that is, if you haven't
changed the colors). When you select menu items, they turn to the
inverse colors of black and orange. If you use Preferences to change
your Workbench colors, you are choosing new colors for the palette
of the Workbench screen, which show up as new colors for the
background, window borders, and inverse menu lettering.
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92
THE SCREEN STATEMENT
When you start working with Amiga BASIC, you use the List and
Output windows that BASIC creates on the Workbench screen. Any
graphics you create or text you print will appear in the Output
window using the Workbench screen's resolution and four-color
limitation. You'll probably want to use more colors and a different
resolution. To do so, you need to create a new screen with the
SCREEN statement. It uses this format:
SCREEN screen ID number, width, height, depth, resolution mode
The five specifications following SCREEN have to appear in this

order, and must be separated by commas.
THE SCREEN ID NUMBER

You can create up to four screens in Amiga BASIC. These are in
addition to the Workbench screen, so you can have a total of up to
five screens on the monitor at once. To identify your screens, you
give each screen an ID number of 1, 2, 3, or 4. The Workbench
screen is always numbered -1 Later in this chapter, when you use
the WINDOW statement to create windows, you'll use the screen ID
number to tell BASIC which screen you want to put the window on.
THE SCREEN RESOLUTION MODE

Although the screen resolution mode is the last specification you
enter in the SCREEN statement, you need to know what resolution
you're going to use before you set the width, height, and depth of
the screen. You can choose any one of four different resolution
modes. Each mode uses a different size pixel.
There are two different pixel widths: fat, called low-resolution,
and skinny, called high-resolution. High-resolution pixels are skinny
enough to fit 640 of them across a full screen. Low-resolution pixels
are twice as wide as high-resolution pixels: 320 low-resolution
pixels fit across a full screen.
There are also two different pixel heights: tall, which is called
non-interlaced, and short, which is called interlaced. On a full
screen, 200 non-interlaced pixels fit from top to bottom. Interlaced
pixels are half as high as non-interlaced pixels; 400 interlaced
pixels fit from top to bottom on a full screen.
93
By combining the two different widths and two different heights
of the pixels, you have four different resolutions available that you
can specify with the following resolution mode numbers:
Mode 1: Low-resolution, non-interlaced pixels that measure a

maximum of 320 by 200 on a full screen.
Mode 2: High-resolution, non-interlaced pixels that measure a

Mode 3: Low-resolution, interlaced pixels that measure a

Mode 4: High-resolution, interlaced pixels that measure a

For reference, the Workbench screen is a mode 2 screen.

Any screens that use mode 3 or 4 flicker slightly on the monitor
because they use interlaced pixels. To fit 400 lines of pixels on the
monitor, the Amiga uses a display method called interlacing that
first draws all the odd-numbered raster lines and then draws all the
even-numbered raster lines. It alternates back and forth between
the odd and even lines once every Vso of a second, which is slow
enough to create a slight flicker. Non-interlaced pixels don't flicker
because the Amiga draws all the lines in one pass every Yw of a
second, fast enough to avoid a flicker.
Anytime there are several screens on the monitor and any one of
them is an interlaced screen, the entire monitor will flicker slightly,
since the monitor must use the interlacing display method for its
entire screen. The interlacing won't affect the size of the pixels in
the non-interlaced screens. Apart from the flicker, they'll look just as
they normally do. Closing all interlaced screens will get rid of the
flicker on the monitor.
SCREEN WIDTH AND HEIGHT

Once you've decided on a resolution mode, you can set the size
of the screen by setting width and height in pixels. To set the
width and height, you need to consider the limits of your screen
resolution and keep within them. For example, you can't create a
mode 1 screen measuring 400 by 200 pixels because a mode 1
screen has a maximum width and height of 320 by 200 pixels.
If you create a screen that is smaller than the maximum dimen
sions of its resolution, BASIC positions the screen in the lower left
corner of the monitor display. For example, a mode 1 screen set to a
width and height of 160 by 100 would appear on the monitor as
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94
shown in Figure 4-3. You can't drag this screen above its current
position, but you can drag it down lower. Notice also that the area
to the right of the screen is blank, but it will drag up and down
with the screen, since the resolution of the screen covers the full
width of the monitor.
Figure 4-3.
A160-by-100model
screen.
SCREEN DEPTH
The depth of a screen is measured in bit planes. The number
of bit planes in a screen determines how many colors the screen
and all the windows in that screen can display. Each bit plane is
a section of the Amiga's RAM that uses one bit to store color
information for each pixel in the screen. By combining bit planes,
the Amiga can use multiple bits for color storage for each pixel
m the screen.
You can specify anywhere from one to five bit planes when you
create a screen. A screen with one bit plane supports just two
colors, because there's only one bit in memory for each pixel (the
bit can be either on or off, hence two colors). Each additional bit
plane you add to a screen assigns one additional bit m memory for
each pixel, allowing more colors to choose from for displaying each
pixel. For example, a 2-bit-plane screen assigns two bits to each
pixel, giving you four colors to choose fromsince two bits allows
four combinations of zeros and ones. Each bit plane you add
doubles the color capacity of each pixel, since each bit doubles the
possible combinations of zeros and ones. The following chart
95
shows how many colors are available for each pixel when you
assign the corresponding screen depth:
Number of bit planes Number of colors
1 2
2 4
3 8
4 16
5 32
Although you can specify up to five bit planes in resolution

modes 1 and 3, you are limited to four bit planes (16 colors)
in modes 2 and 4.
SCREEN MEMORY REQUIREMENTS

When you set a screen's dimensions, BASIC reserves enough
RAM to contain the bit planes for that screen. To get an estimate of
how much memory each screen takes, multiply the three screen
dimensions together to get the number of bits, then divide by eight
to get the number of bytes:
height x width x depth -r- 8 =

approximate screen RAM in bytes
For example, a 320-by-200-by-5 screen would use approximately

40,000 bytes of memory (320 times 200 times 5 divided by 8).
Amiga BASIC reserves RAM for the screens in the system
memory (not in the original 25,000 bytes set aside by BASIC to store
programs). When you create screens, you should keep in mind how
much system memory you have available, and be careful not to
overload it. The best way to conserve memory is to limit the depth
of your screen if you don't need many colors. A 320-by-200-by-5
screen can use 32 different colors, since it uses 5 bit planes. If you
cut it down to 4 colors, requiring just 2 bit planes, you'd need only
16,000 bytes of RAM for the screen instead of 40,000.
SCREEN STATEMENT EXAMPLES

Once you've decided on a screen-resolution mode, the dimen
sions of the screen, and the screen ID number, it's very easy to
create a screen. As a simple example, to create a mode 4 screen
with the screen ID number 1 that measures 640 by 400 with 2 bit
planes, you'd enter:
SCREEN 1 , 640, 100 ,2,4
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96
To see how to create several screens of different resolutions at
once on the monitor, enter and run this very short program:
SCREEN 1 , 320, 200 ,1,1
SCREEN 2, 640, 200 ,1,2
SCREEN 3, 320 , 400 ,1,3
SCREEN 4 , G40 , 400 ,1,4
This program creates four full-size screens, one in each

resolution, each with a depth of only one bit plane (to conserve
memory). You won't see the screens immediately, because they
disappear behind the Workbench screen as soon as the program
stops running (which is almost immediately). To see them, you
need to first resize both the BASIC Output and List windows and
drag them to the bottom of the Workbench screen so you can see
the Workbench title bar. Then, to see the screen behind the
Workbench screen, you need to drag the entire Workbench screen
down by its title bar. You should see the title bar of screen number
4. If you drag screen 4 down, you can see screen number 3.
Dragging screen 3 down reveals screen 2, and dragging screen 2
down reveals screen number 1, so you can see five different screens
on the monitor at once, as shown in Figure 4-4. You can use the
back and front gadgets on the screens to move them to the front or
hide them in the back if you want.
Figure 4-4.
Five different screens on

the monitor at one time.
97
In Figure 4-4, you'll notice that the sizes of the title bars and
gadgets change from screen to screen, depending on the screen's
resolution. You can also see that the screens are layered in the order
you created them. Each new screen you create always appears in
front of any screens you previously created.
THE SCREEN CLOSE STATEMENT
When you're finished with a screen, you should close it to make

it disappear from the monitor and to release the RAM the Amiga
uses to store the screen. The SCREEN CLOSE statement will do
that. It uses this format;
SCREEN CLOSE screen ID number
The screen ID number specifies the screen you want to close.

For example, to close screen 3, you'd use:
SCREEN CLOSE 3
To return your monitor screen back to normal after running the

previous multiple-screen program, drag the title bar of the
Workbench screen back up to the top of the monitor, click in the
BASIC Output window to select it, and then enter these four
immediate commands:
SCREEN CLOSE 4
SCREEN CLOSE 3
SCREEN CLOSE 2
SCREEN CLOSE 1
You should notice that the interlacing flicker disappears as soon

as you close screens 3 and 4, the interlaced screens.
THE WINDOW STATEMENT
When you create a screen, you set the resolution and number of
colors you want to work with. To create an area on that screen to
put graphics and text into, you must create a window with the
WINDOW statement. You can create as many windows as the
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98
Amiga's memory will support, and you can make them in different
sizes, locations, and with different features. You can make windows
in the Workbench screen or any other screens you have already
created with the SCREEN statement.
The format for the WINDOW statement is:
WINDOW window ID number, title, opposing corner addresses,
window features number, screen ID number
Each of the specifications following WINDOW must come in the

order shown in the format, and all specifications must be separated
by commas. The window ID number must be included in every
WINDOW statement- Because the other specifications are not
necessarily relevant for every window, they are optional, as you'll
see shortly. However, if a specification is not set but specifications
after it are set, a comma must still be included at its position.
THE WINDOW ID NUMBER

To identify and keep track of more than one window, you need to
assign a window ID number to each window you create. It can be
any integer from 1 up to 255. Window ID number 1 is the BASIC
Output window, so if you want to create a new window without
altering the Output window, you should start with ID number 2 and
continue numbering from there with each new WINDOW statement.
THE WINDOW TITLE

The title specification of the WINDOW statement lets you include
a name that will appear in a window's title bar. You can use any
string you want as a title. For example, you can use a string in
quotes like "Aieeeee!" or you can use a string variable like TITLES
that's been assigned earlier in the program. It's a good rule of
thumb to always end the string with a space to make the title
appear cleaner and less cramped in the title bar. If you don't want a
title, and you want to include other specifications that are to the
right of the title in the WINDOW statement, you must include a
comma at the title specification's position. The window's title bar
will then be blank.
OPPOSING CORNER ADDRESSES

You set the size and location of the window by specifying the
location of two of its opposing corners on the screen. To specify the
two corners on the screen, you need to use pixel addressing. Pixels
are arranged on a screen in a grid, using numbered rows and
columns that start in the upper left corner of the screen. The top
99
row of pixels is row 0, the rows following below it are numbered 1,
2, 3, 4, and so on until you reach the bottom of the screen. The first
column of pixels on the left is numbered column 0, and the col
umns following it to the right are numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, and so on
until you reach the right side of the screen. Figure 4-5 shows you
how this numbering system works.
Columns
Figure 4-5.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17*
Amiga BASIC'S pixel- 0
addressing system. 1
2
R
o 3
W
4
s
7 I
8
\
* Pixel at location (5,7)
To locate any one pixel, you use a pixel address that is the pixel's
column number followed by its row number. For example, a pixel at
address 5,7 is 6 columns over and 8 rows down from the upper left
corner of the screen. Because the numbering starts with zero, the
actual row and column is always one count greater than the row
and coiumn number in the address.
In Amiga BASIC, pixel addresses are always enclosed in
parentheses with the column number first, followed by a comma
and the row number. The pixel address shown before would appear
as (5.7) in a BASIC program. When you use two addresses, as you
do to show the two opposing corners of a window, you separate
them with a dash. So a window occupying the upper left quarter of
a 320-by-200 screen would be shown as (0,0) - (159,99). These two
addresses are the upper left corner of the screen and the center of
the screen. The window they position looks like the one shown in
Figure 4-6.
SECTION 2: IMAGES
100
Figure 4-6.
n Corner Window
A window created in
the upper quarter of a

screen.
When you enter opposing corner addresses, make sure your

addresses are within the boundaries of the screen. The boundaries
are decided by the resolution and the size of the screen you set
in the SCREEN statement. If you have a 640 by 400 screen, then
(10,20) - (300,450) won't work because the second address goes off
the bottom of the screen.
If you decide not to include opposing corner addresses in the
WINDOW statement and simply include a comma at their position,
the window you create will fill the entire screen.
WINDOW FEATURES
Windows come in different sizes and varieties, as you've
probably found out by working with different Amiga programs.
Some windows can be dragged around the screen, while others are
stationary Some have all sorts of gadgets; others have none.
The WINDOW statement gives you the chance to customize your
window as you create it. You can pick features for the window
somewhat like choosing items from a catalog. Each feature has a
value associated with it. After you decide which features you want
in your window, you take the value for each feature and add all the
values together. The resulting number is the window features
Amiga BASIC Graphics: Screens. Windows, and Palettes
101
number, and it tells WINDOW which features you've chosen. The
following is a list of window features you can specify with their
corresponding feature values:
Sizing gadget (l)A sizing gadget appears in the lower

right corner of the window. You can drag the sizing gadget
with the pointer to change the size of the window. Without a
sizing gadget, a window can't be changed from its original
size by the user (sometimes a desirable feature in itself).
Window dragging (2)You can drag the window around

the screen by its title bar, using the pointer. Without window
dragging, a window remains fixed where it was created.
Back and front gadgets (4)Back and front gadgets appear

in the upper right corner of the window. You can select either
gadget to make the window move to the front or hide behind
other windows.
Close gadget (8)A close gadget appears in the upper left

corner of the window. By selecting the close gadget with the
pointer, you can close the window, making it disappear from
the screen. Without a close gadget, you can't remove a
window from the screen with the pointer.
Window refreshing (16)The contents of the window are

redrawn (refreshed) if they've been covered by another window
and then exposed again, or if the window has been resized
much smaller and then enlarged again. Without window
refreshing, any part of the inside of a window will be erased
for good if it's covered with another window or if it disappears
when the window is resized.
Figure 4-7 shows a window with all of the features that are
visible on a window. (It obviously can't show window dragging or
refreshing!)
As an example of specifying window features, if you want a
window with a sizing gadget, back and front gadgets, and a close
gadget, you sum their feature values1, 4, and 8to get 13.
Entering 13 as the window-features number after the WINDOW
statement specifies those features. If you don't enter any window-
features number and simply include a comma where it would be,
WINDOW assumes you want all the features.
Not all of these features are free. Some will cost you extra
memory, and you should avoid specifying them unless you really
need them. Window refreshing takes a good-sized chunk of RAM to
store the contents of the window. The amount depends on the size
of the window; a large window needs much more RAM for window
SECTION 2: IMAGES
102
Close gadget Tide Title bar Back and front gadgets Figure 4-7.
An Amiga BASIC win

dow with all possible
features.
Sizing gadget
refreshing than a small window. Also, a window with a sizing

gadget needs the same amount of RAM as a full-screen window,
regardless of its initial size, since it can be resized to a very large
window at any time.
One feature that's not mentioned directly on the features list is
the title bar. If you choose back and front gadgets, window drag
ging, or a close gadget, or if you enter a title, your window will
automatically have a title bar. If you don't choose any of these
options, your window will have no title bar.
THE SCREEN ID NUMBER

The last specification you have to include in the WINDOW
statement is the screen ID number. You use this number to tell the
WINDOW command which screen you want to put your window on.
This is important, because the window will use the resolution and
color palette of the screen it's on. The screen ID number can be -1,
1, 2, 3, or 4, and should correspond to the screen ID number you set
when you created a screen with the SCREEN statement. You can't
specify the screen ID number of a non-existent screen; if you ask
WINDOW to create a window on screen number 2 and there is no
screen number 2, BASIC will notify you of an error.
If you want to create a window on the Workbench screen,
specify screen number -1, the Workbench screen's ID number. If
Amiga BASIC Graphics: Screens. Windows, and Palettes
103
you don't specify a screen number, BASIC assumes you mean
the Workbench screen, and will automatically create your
window there.
WINDOW STATEMENT EXAMPLES

To give you an idea of how windows are created, consider
creating a window titled "Dirty Window" on screen number 1,
which has two bit planes, and is a mode 1 screen with dimensions
of 320 by 200. This window will be window number 2, and will
appear in the middle of the screen. It has all the window features
except window refreshing- The WINDOW statement to create it
will be:
WINDOW 2,"Dlrty Window ", (79,49) - (239,149), 15, 1
If you want to try it out, enter and run this short program:
SCREEN 1, 320, 200, 2, 1
WINDOW 2, "Dirty Window ", (79,49) - (239,149), 15, 1
The screen created by this program should look like Figure 4-8.
You can move the window around with the pointer and use the
gadgets. To return to the Workbench screen, choose Show List from
the Windows menu. The List and Output windows will then
reappear.
Figure 4-8
The window created by

the "Dirty Window"
program.
El Dir ty Window
SECTION 2 IMAGES
104
As mentioned earlier, the only specification that has to be in the
WINDOW statement is the window ID number. The statement
WINDOW 2
will work just fine. It creates window number 2, which has all the
window features, no title, and fills the entire Workbench screen.
If you want to include a specification at the end of the statement
without filling in all the other specifications, you must insert
commas in place of the omitted specifications, or you'll get a
syntax error. To open a window number 2 in screen number 1 with
no other specifications, you'd use the command;
WINDDW 2, , , , 1
THE OUTPUT WINDOW
Even if there is more than one window open, Amiga BASIC will
create graphics and print text in only one window at a time. If that
weren't the case, BASIC wouldn't know which window to use to
display the results of any graphics or printing commands you issue.
The one window that is currently active for text and graphics is
called the output window.
When you create windows with the WINDOW statement, the last
window you create is automatically set to be the output window.
Ail output from graphics commands and text from print statements
that follow will show up in that window.
You can use the WINDOW statement to re-create a window,
bringing it up in front of other windows and making it the output
window. For example, the short program shown below will create
two windows, 2 and 3, and then re-create 2, bringing it out from
behind 3 in the same location and size, making it the output
window. The PRINT statement at the end of the program tests to
see which window becomes the output window.
WINDOW 2, "Window 2 ", (0,0) - (250,100)
WINDDW 3, "Window 3 ", (200,0) - (400,100)
WINDDW 2
PRINT "This is the output window."
Notice that the title bar of the output window is ghosted

(dimmed). Only the title bar of the input window (the window
where you put the pointer and click the Select button) will have an
105
unghosted title bar. The input and output windows don't neces
sarily have anything to do with each other.
Notice also that the third program line recreates Window 2
without changing its original size and location. Whenever you use
a WINDOW statement without specifications for a window that
already exists, BASIC uses the first set of specifications you chose
for that window.
THE WINDOW OUTPUT STATEMENT
If you want to make an existing window the output window

without moving it in front of the oiher windows, you can use the
WINDOW OUTPUT statement, which uses this format;
WINDOW OUTPUT window ID number
You specify the ID number of the existing window you want to

turn into the output window. After BASIC executes the WINDOW
OUTPUT command, the window you specified will now display text
and graphics without moving in front of the other windows. If you
substitute the following two lines for the last line in the previous
program example, window 3 will become the output window while
it remains behind window 2. The PRINT command will print a
message in window 3 so you can see it print out text:
WINDOW OUTPUT 3
PRINT "Hello there, window peeker."
THE WINDOW CLOSE STATEMENT
As you create more windows on a screen, you'll notice that it

takes longer to move and resize the windows with the pointer,
because the Amiga is slowed down by the number of windows it
has to keep track of. It's important to close any windows you aren't
using to free up the RAM they use so that the Amiga can work at
top speed.
You can close a window in two ways: If it has a close gadget,
you can select the close gadget with the pointer and the window
will disappear. If you want to close the window from within a
SECTION 2: IMAGES
106
BASIC program, you can use the WINDOW CLOSE command, which
uses this format:
WINDOW CLD5E window ID number
The window ID number specifies which window you want to

close. For example, this command closes window number 2:
WINDOW CLOSE 2
PALETTES AND COLOR REGISTERS
As you recall, each screen on the monitor has its own palette
with its own array of colors that it uses to color in its background,
borders, menu items, and any graphics and text in any of its
windows. The Amiga uses 32 different locations in RAM, called
color registers, to store those colors. The color registers are num
bered from 0 to 31, and there is a separate set of 32 registers for
each screen.
When you first turn on the Amiga, the color registers are already
filled with default colors that you can use without changing if they
suit your needs. If you'd like to see them, run this program:
SCREEN 1 , 320, 200 ,5,1

WINDOW 2, "Color Registers ", , , 1
PSET(G,190]
FOR i - 0 TO 31
LINE STEP(0,-180) - STEP(9,18O), i, BF
NEXT i
This program draws an array of vertical color bars across the

screen. (Don't worry about the PSET and LINE statements yet
you'll learn about them in the next chapter.) The color bars show
the contents of the color registers in order from 0 to 31, going from
left to right. (If you count only 31 colors, that's because the bar on
the far left is colored the same as the background color.)
The Amiga follows predetermined rules to use its color registers:
Color register 0 is always the background color, and color 1 is the
foreground color the Amiga uses to print its text, window frames,
and other standard Workbench features. Color registers 2 and 3 are
the colors used for inverse-video menu items on the Workbench.
Color registers 17 to 20 are the colors used for the pointer. (The
pointer is not considered part of the screen, so it can use these
color registers even though the screen can't.) If you use Preferences
Amiga BASIC Graphics. Screens, Windows, and Palettes
107
in the Workbench to change your Workbench and pointer colors,
you change the contents of color registers 0 to 3 and 17 to 20.
You can't always use all 32 color registers in each screen. The
number of color registers you can use in any screen is limited by
the screen's depth in bit planes. The foDowing chart shows which
color registers are used for screens of different depths:
Number of bit planes Color registers used

1 Oand 1
2 0 to 3
3 0to7
4 0tol5
5 0 to 31
THE COLOR STATEMENT
Most Amiga BASIC drawing statements create their figures with

the foreground color stored in color register 1. Text is also printed
in the foreground color. Some drawing statements also use the
background color stored in color register 0 to fill in figures. You can
change both the foreground and the background colors to different
available color registers with the COLOR statement. It uses this
format:
CQLDR foreground color register number, background color
register number
To set the foreground and background colors, you specify the

register number you want to use for each color, separated by a
comma. For example, the following command specifies the color in
register 2 as the foreground color and the color in register 3 as the
background color.
COLOR 2, 3
If you leave out the comma and the second number, COLOR sets
just the foreground color without altering the background color. If
you follow COLOR with a comma and then a number, it sets the
background color without changing the foreground color. If you
SECTION 2: IMAGES
108
don't use the COLOR statement in a program, BASIC assumes that
the color in color register 1 is the foreground color and the color in
register 0 is the background color. Once you set new foreground
and background colors with the COLOR statement, BASIC uses
them for any drawing commands that follow By changing the
background and foreground colors between drawing commands,
you can set new colors for new figures.
Changing the foreground color will have an obvious effect: Any
drawing or text statements that follow the COLOR statement will
use the new foreground color, since BASIC statements that create
graphics draw with the foreground color, as you'D see in the next
chapter. Changing the background color is not always so obvious.
Unless you use a statement that uses the background color when
it executes, you won't see any change to the current background
color. The important thing to remember about changing the
foreground and background colors is that they will affect drawing
statements that follow the COLOR statementanything created up
to that point will remain on the screen in the color it was created
with (unless you re-create it after the subsequent COLOR
statement).
When you choose foreground and background colors with the
COLOR statement, you're restricted to the colors available in the
color registers that the screen contains. For example, if you're
drawing in a screen with two bit planes, that screen has four color
registers and your choice is limited to just those four colors. If the
default colors in the four color registers aren't to your liking, you'll
want to change them to colors that you like so the choice, although
limited, offers you desirable colors. The PALETTE statement lets
you change the contents of any color register to any one of 4096
different colors.
THE PALETTE STATEMENT
The PALETTE statement uses this format:
PALETTE color register number, red value, green value,

blue va1ue
The color-register number, an integer from 0 to 31, specifies the

color register you want to change. The red, green, and blue values
are fractional numbers from 0 to 1 that specify the relative strengths
of red, green, and blue you want to mix together to create a new
color. To understand how these strengths are set, you must know
how a color register stores a color.
109
HOW COLOR REGISTERS STORE COLOR
Each color register stores one color as a combination of the
primary colorsred, green, and blue. When you tell BASIC what
color you want to store in the register you specify, you must tell it
the strength of each primary color that you want to use to make up
the new color. There are 16 levels of strength that can be specified
for each of the primary colors, making a total of 4096 colors to
choose from (16 times 16 times 16 equals 4096).
Instead of specifying whole numbers from 1 to 16 (for example, 5
parts red, 8 parts green, and 16 parts blue), Amiga BASIC requires
you to specify the strength of each color as a fractional number
from 0 to 1. A value of 0 means that the primary color isn't present,
while a value of 1 means the color is present in full strength. The
chart in Figure 4-9 will help you determine the fractional numbers
to use in the PALETTE statement to represent the strength of each
primary color. Using this chart, you can specify a color as shown
above (5 parts red, 8 parts green, and 16 parts blue), and then
translate these numbers into the fractional numbers that BASIC
expects in the PALETTE statement (.28, .47, and 1 in our example).
Figure 4-9.
Primary color strength PALETTE value
The 16 primary-color 1 0.00

strengths and their corre 2 .09
sponding PALETTE 3 .15
values. A .22
5 .28
6 .34
7 .40
S .47
9 .53
10 .59
11 .65
12 .72
13 .78
14 84
L6 .90
16 1.00
To set a new color, you decide on the strengths of each of the

three primary colors, then enter the number of the color register
you want to change, followed by the corresponding values from the
SECTION 2- IMAGES
110
table above, after the PALETTE statement. For example, the
following statement will change the color in register 0 (the
background color register) to a shade of green by setting red to
strength .34, green to .84, and blue to 0 (no blue present):
PALETTE 0 , .34, .84, 0
CREATING DIFFERENT PALETTES FOR DIFFERENT SCREENS

Recall that each Amiga screen has its own set of color registers.
As you create new screens with the SCREEN statement, Amiga
BASIC simply copies the contents of the color registers in the
original Workbench screen to the color registers of the new screens.
To create an entirely new set of colors for a new screen, just use a
set of PALETTE statements immediately after you use the SCREEN
statementPALETTE affects only the color registers of the last
screen you create.
As an example, this short program creates the color bars you
created a few pages ago on one screen, then creates an entirely
new color palette for a new (second) screen, then displays the
results of the new palette:
SCREEN 1 , 320, 200 ,5,1
WINDDW'2, "Color Registers " , , 15, 1

PSET(0 ,190)
FDR i - 0 TO 31
LINE 5TEP(0,-180) - STEP(9,180), I, BF
NEXT i
SCREEN 2, 320, 200 ,5,1
WINDOW 3, "Color Registers ", (0,10) - (297,185), 15, 2

FDR l = 0 TD 31
PALETTE i, RND(1), RND(1), RND(1)

NEXT i
PSET(0,190)
FOR l = 0 TO 31
LINE STEP(0,-180) - STEP(9,180], i, BF
NEXT l
The loop just after the WINDOW 3 statement uses the PALETTE
statement to create a random set of colors for the second screen's
color registers. When you run the program, you can see these
random colors. If you drag the randomly colored screen down by its
title bar, you can see your first screen with an entirely different set
of colors just behind it. By putting different screens on the monitor,
111
each with its own unique set of colors, you can display more than
32 colors on the monitor at one time (shown below in Figure 4-10).
Figure 4-10.
Two different screens

with two unique screen
palettes.
You've learned how to create screens so you can set the

resolution you want to use; how to create windows to set
the size of the area in which you put your graphics; and
how to create new color palettes so you set precisely the
colors you want to work witheverything short of actu
ally creating a picture. These are preliminary activities.
Think of them as setting up your canvas and mixing your
paints. In the next chapter, you will learn to apply the paint
to the canvas and create a picture with the Amiga BASIC
drawing commands.
SECTION 2: IMAGES
112
CHAPTER FIVE
AMIGA BASIC
GRAPHICS:
CREATING IMAGES
Creating a new screen, setting an output window,
and deciding on the colors you want in a palette are only
the preliminary steps of creating BASIC graphics on the
Amiga. Once you've set up the area you're going to work in,
you can start being imaginative, filling windows with
figures of your own creation.
In this chapter, you'll learn about Amiga BASIC state
ments that allow you to draw simple shapes, change the
color of a single pixel or an entire window, and create
different patterns for drawing lines and filling in figures.
You'll also learn a new way to address pixels, and find out
how to set background and foreground colors. When you're
finished with this chapter, you should be well on your way
to becoming an Amiga BASIC artist.
THE GRAPHICS CURSOR AND PIXEL ADDRESSING
Each of the Amiga BASIC drawing statements that you'll use

m this chapter draws with an invisible graphics cursor. To tell each
drawing statement where to start and end its work, you must
understand how the graphics cursor works, and how to use pixel
addresses to specify a starting and ending pixel.
THE GRAPHICS CURSOR

When you use Amiga BASIC graphics statements that use pixel
addresses, you move an invisible graphics cursor the size of one
pixel around the window. This graphics cursor changes the color of
the pixels addressed by the drawing statement as it passes over
them. If you use a simple statement that alters just one pixel, the
graphics cursor moves to the pixel, changes its color, then stays in
the same location until you move it again with another graphics
statement. If you use a more complex command that uses two
addresses, like a command that draws a line or a box, the graphics
cursor starts at the first address and ends up at the second one.
There are two methods of positioning the graphics cursor
on a pixel in a window in Amiga BASIC: absolute addressing and
relative addressing.
ABSOLUTE ADDRESSING
Absolute addressing is the same addressing system you use to
specify the opposing corners of a window in a screen (described in
the WINDOW statement section m the previous chapter), except
that it specifies an address within the boundaries of a window
instead of a screen. In absolute addressing, the address you spec
ify is always in reference to the upper left corner of the window.
SECTION 2. IMAGES
114
The pixels are numbered by column and row, starting with (0,0) in
the upper left corner of the window. The addresses are enclosed
in parentheses and use a comma to separate the column number
from the row number. For example, (13,20) specifies an address
14 columns to the right and 21 rows down from the upper left
corner (0,0) of the window.
RELATIVE ADDRESSING
Relative addressing lets you describe a new pixel location as
the distance from a previous pixel address. Each relative address
starts with the keyword STEP, followed by a distance in columns
and a distance in rows, separated by a comma and enclosed in
parentheses. For example, STEP(5,8) specifies a new address five
columns to the right and eight rows down from the last pixel
address you used. If you want to use a relative address to move
to the left or up from the last pixel address, you use negative
numbers. For example, STEP(-7, -9) specifies a new address that
is 7 columns to the left and 9 rows above the old address.
Relative addressing saves you the time you'd take to calculate a
new absolute address. For example, if you use absolute addressing
and you start with a pixel at location (10,5), then want to specify a
pixel 10 columns to the right and 20 rows down, you have to add 10
to the column number and 20 to the row number to get a new
address of (20.25). If you use relative addressing, you can specify the
second address using STEP{10,20) to move 10 columns to the right
and 20 rows down. Figure 5-1 shows how this works.
Figure 5-1.
Using relative addressing

to specify a new puce!
address.
Amiga BASIC Graphics. Creating Images
115
Relative addressing works especially well in FOR... NEXT loops
where the address changes in each cycle of the loop. Instead of
calculating new absolute addresses for each cycle, a simple relative
address will change the address by the incremental value of the
loop for each iteration. For example, the program shown in Figure
5-2 uses the PSET statement (discussed shortly) to plot a point on
the screen 100 pixels over and 50 pixels down using an absolute
address, then uses another PSET statement in a FOR... NEXT loop to
plot 10 more points, each one plotted in relation to the previous
point specified.
Figure 5-2.
Points plotted using a

FOR... NEXT loop and
relative addressing.
Anytime you use a relative address, it uses the last position

of the graphics cursor as its point of reference. That position is
normally set by the last graphics command. Consider an example:
If you use a line-drawing command that ends up at address (55.90).
and then use a new graphics statement that uses the relative
address STEP(KUO), BASIC uses (55.90) as its point of reference to
compute a new address 10 columns to the right and 10 rows down.
The key to controlling the graphics cursor with relative addressing
is knowing its location before you use a relative address. If you
don't, you may get unpredictable results. When you're not sure, it's
a good idea to use absolute addressing.
SECTION 2 IMAGES
116
WINDOW BOUNDARIES
When using pixel addresses in the drawing statements, it's
important to make sure you remain inside the boundaries of the
output window Some statements simply won't work if you specify
an address outside the window, while others will stop the program
and return an error message.
When you first create a window with the WINDOW command,
you set the size of the window's interior with opposite corner
addresses. (See Chapter 4 for details on creating a window.) If you
create a window with opposite corners at (50,20) and (250,120), with
a title bar, no sizing gadget, and no front and back gadgets, you
have a window interior that measures 201 pixels across (the
distance from column 50 to column 250, inclusive) and 101 pixels
from top to bottom (the distance from row 20 to row 120, inclusive).
The window that appears on the screen is actually larger than 201
by 101 because it includes the border and the title, which are
outside the interior area. It also includes an interior border that
measures one pixel across the top and bottom, and two pixels wide
on either side, just inside the window border, as you can see in
Figure 5-3. Since the interior border is the same color as the
background color, you can't really see it there. It's impossible to fill
those pixels m, since this "invisible" interior border is always in
placeyou can't turn it off or disable it.
Figure 5-3.
The graphics area inside

a window with opposing
corners at (50,20) and
(250,120).
Amiga BASIC Graphics: Creating Images
117
If you add a sizing gadget to a window, the window becomes
15 pixels wider to accommodate the sizing gadget. You can't draw
in the 10 columns next to the right border, though, so you gain only
5 columns of usable space in the window's interior. If you create a
window without a title bar, the interior of the window moves up to
occupy the space where the title bar would be, and you gain 10
more rows of pixels at the bottom of the window. Figure 5-4 shows
a window with the same opposing corner addresses as the window
in Figure 5-3, but with a sizing gadget and no title bar. You can see
that it has an interior that measures 206 columns by 111 rows5
pixels wider and 10 pixels higher than the same window with a
title bar and no sizing gadget.
Figure 5-4.
The graphics area inside

a window with opposing
corners at {50,20} and
(250.120). no title bar, and

a sizing gadget.
When you use graphics statements in a window, you know

your addresses will remain within the window if you keep them
within the limits set by the opposing corner addresses and within
the invisible border. Another way to keep them within window
boundaries is to read the size of the window boundaries with the
WINDOW0 function, discussed in the next chapter.
SECTION 2 IMAGES
118
THE CLS STATEMENT
Before you start creating figures in the output window with

BASIC statements, or whenever you want to erase any existing
figures in the output window, you can completely clear it by using
the CLS command. Its format is simple:
CLS
CLS erases everything in the output window and fills it entirely

with the background color. The following program demonstrates its
effect. It uses the COLOR statement to change the background color
four different times, then uses the CLS statement to fill the screen
with each background color.
FDR i = 1 TO 3
COLOR , i
CLS
FOR t = 1 TO 2000: NEXT t
NEXT i
COLOR , 0
CLS
THE PSET STATEMENT
PSET is a very simple statement: It changes the color of a single

pixel in the output window to a color you specify. By combining
many PSET statements, you can create intricate images in a
window. The format is simple:
PSETfpjxei address}, col or -reglster number
The pixel address can be either an absolute or relative address.

The color-register number is optional. If you include it, it must be
separated from the address by a comma. If you don't specify a
color-register number, PSET colors the pixel with the foreground
color. For example, the statement
PSET{149,99)
fills in the pixel at column 150, row 100, using the current foreground
color. If you specify a color-register number, PSET uses the color
119
in that register to color the pixel instead of using the foreground
color. For example,
PSET(199,149), 3
uses color register 3 to fill in the pixel at column 200, row 150
instead of using the foreground color.
You can't specify a color register not used by the screen you're
working with. For example, if you're using a 2-bit-plane screen,
such as the default Workbench screen, you can only specify regis
ters 0 through 3, since a 2-bit-plane screen allows only four color
registers. Also, specifying a color-register number affects that pixel
onlysubsequent pixels set with the PSET statement will use the
default foreground color unless another register is specified.
THE PRESET STATEMENT
The PRESET statement works almost exactly like the PSET com
mand. The difference is that PRESET colors the pixel at the address
with the background color instead of the foreground color if you
don't specify a color register. It uses the same format as PSET:
PRESETfpixeJ address I , co 1 or-rggi5 ter number
The color-register number is optional. For example, the command
PRESET(14,74)
fills in pixel (15.75) with the current background color. PRESET is

very handy for erasing pixels previously created with PSET.
If you follow the pixel address with a comma and a color-register
number, PRESET colors the pixel with the color in the specified
color register (just like a PSET command that specifies a color
register). Like the PSET statement, the number of color registers
available to you depends on the number of bit planes defined for
the screen containing the output window.
USING PSET AND PRESET WITH FORMULAS

TO CREATE FIGURES
If you have the patience of a saint, the mathematical abilities of

an accountant, and the design methods of a carpet maker, you can
individually plot each pixel of an intricate image, using the PSET
SECTION 2: IMAGES
120
statement with a different address and color for each pixel. If you
want to do this, it helps to use graph paper to draw your figure and
work out the pixel addresses and colors.
An easier way to create figures is to let a FOR... NEXT loop
do some of the work for you. As a simple example, the following
program draws a diagonal line on the screen:
FOR i = 1 TD 100
PSET( 1,1)
NEXT i
If you have some experience with trigonometry, you can use its
functions to plot some nice shapes in the output window. By using
the value of the counter variable in the FOR.. .NEXT loop as one of
the addresses (either the column or the row number), and a
trigonometric function to set the value for the other half of the
address, you can actually chart values in the output window. As an
example, the following program uses the SIN function to create a
sine wave on the screen, as shown in Figure 5-5.
FOR i = 0 TO GOO
PSET(i, 90 + 80 SIN(6.28318 / 600 L
NEXT i
Loop: GOTO Loop
Figure 5-5.
The PSET command

used with a trig
onometric function
creates this sine wave.
121
If you analyze the row address in the PSET statement, you can
see that it uses one full cycle of a sine wave (6.28318, which is two
times pi), that it multiplies the results by 80 so the wave goes to the
top and bottom of the window, then adds this value to 90 to center
the wave horizontally in the window. The last line in the program is
merely an "infinite loop" that keeps the program running and the
List window hidden; otherwise, it might appear and cover up the
right half of the wave. To end the program and show the List
window, use the Menu button on the mouse and choose Stop from
the Run menu.
Figuring out mathematical solutions to create figures may not be
your cup of tea, but if you know how to use them, they can create
some fascinating shapes, save you a lot of tedious single-pixel
plotting, and give you a practical application for all that trig you
slogged through in high school.
THE LINE STATEMENT
So far, you've read about Amiga BASIC statements that work

with single pixels. BASIC also provides several statements that let
you draw fully formed objects with just a single statement. One
such statement is LINE. Actually, variations of the LINE statement
let you draw three types of objects: straight lines, hollow boxes, or
boxes filled with the foreground color. The LINE statement uses
this format:
LINE(5 tartingaddress) - (ending address), color-register
number, box opt ions
LINE has to have both a starting and an ending address, separated

by a dash. The addresses can be either absolute or relative (relative
addresses must be preceded by the keyword STEP). The color-
register number and the box options are optionalyou can leave
them out. However, if you do include them, they have to be sep
arated by commas.
CREATING LINES
All you need do to create a line is supply the beginning- and
ending-point addresses, like this:
L1NE(7O,54) - (10,5)
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122
As you can see in Figure 5-6, this statement draws a line from the
point at (70,54) to the point at (10,5), using the default foreground
color. To use any other color register for the line, just follow the
statement with a color-register number:
L!NE(70,54 10,5
This statement draws the same line as before, but colors it using
the color in color register 2 instead of the foreground color. You
should note that specifying a color-register number affects only
that line; subsequent lines drawn with no color-register number
specified will use the foreground color. Also, the number of color
registers available depends on the depth (number of bit planes) of
the screen containing the output window
Figure 5-6.
The LINE statement
creates a line.
CREATING BOXES
To create a box with the LINE statement, you specify the upper
left and lower right corners of the box, and add a box option after
the color-register number (if you want to use the current foreground
color, you must include the comma at its position). There are two
box options: B and BF. The B option will make LINE draw a hollow
box instead of a line, using the starting and ending addresses as
123
opposing corners of the box. The BF option draws a box filled with
the current foreground color. For example,
L1NE(1OQ,25) - STEP(100,50), , B
draws a box with its upper left corner at address (100,25) and its
lower right corner 100 columns to the right and 50 rows down
(recall that STEP indicates a relative address). In this example, the
box is a hollow box, since we used the B option, and it's drawn
with the current foreground color since no color register was
specified. You can see the results in Figure 5-7, together with a
filled box created with this statement:
LINE(IOO.IOO) - STEP(100,50), , BF
Figure 5-7
The LINE statement with

the B option creates a
hollow box, and the BF
option creates a box filled
with the current fore

ground color.
THE CIRCLE STATEMENT
Just as variations of the LINE statement allow you to create

straight lines, angles, and boxes, the CIRCLE statement lets you
create circles, ovals, and arcs. CIRCLE uses this format:
CIRCLE I center address), radius, color-register number,
arc starting point, arc ending point, aspect
SECTION 2: IMAGES
124
You must specify the center address and radius values. The
center address can be absolute or relative. The color-register
number, the arc starting and ending points, and the aspect are all
optional. All the values have to be separated with commas if you
include them.
CREATING CIRCLES
To create a simple circle, you supply CIRCLE with an address for
the center of the circle and a value for the radius. The radius is
measured in pixels from the center of the circle to the edge of the
circle. For example, the statement to create a circle centered at
(150,100) with a radius of 50 pixels is:
CIRCLE(150,100), 50
You can see the result in Figure 5-8.
Figure 5-8.
The CIRCLE statement
creates a circle.
CIRCLE normally creates a circle using the current foreground

color. If you want to use a different color, follow the radius with a
comma and a color-register number. The statement
ClRCLE(150,100), 50, 3
creates the same circle as before, but draws it using the color in
color register 3.
125
CREATING ARCS
To create an arc, add a starting and ending point on the circle
for each end of the arc. To specify these points, measure the circle
in radians and give CIRCLE the two ends of the arc as radian
measurements. Think of a radian as a unit of measurement that
describes the diameter of a circle. A full circle is 6.28318 radians; a
half circle is 3.14159 radians (mathematically referred to as pi).
Radian measurement for the CIRCLE statement begins at the
three o'clock position of the circle, where the measurement is zero.
You measure from that point counterclockwise around the circle
twelve o'clock is 1.57079 radians (pi divided by two), nine o'clock is
3-14159 (pi), six o'clock is 4.71238 (pi times 1.5), and a full circle is
6.28318 radians (two times pi).
If the value specified for the starting point is smaller than the
value specified for the ending point, the arc will be drawn counter
clockwise. If the first value is larger than the second, the arc will be
drawn clockwise.
In addition to drawing the arc itself, you can add straight lines
from the starting and/or ending points of the arc to the center of the
circle by making either or both the arc starting- or ending-point
value a negative number. BASIC draws the arc as if the values were
positive, then draws a line from the point(s) specified as negative
numbers to the circle's center. This statement draws an arc with a
straight line from its ending point, as shown in Figure 5-9:
CIRCLE{150,100), 50, , .75, -5.6
Figure 5-9.

can create arcs and add
lines from the starting
and/or ending points to

the center of the circle.
SECTION 2: IMAGES
126
Many people are more familiar with measuring circles as
degrees of arc rather than radians. To convert degrees into radians,
you can use the following formula:
(3.14159 {angle of degree)) / 180 = radians
where angle of degree is the value of the degree you wish to

convert. For example, an angle of 45 degrees would return the value
of .785 radians.
You can see a circle measured in radians in Figure 5-10.
1 Radian Figure 5-10.
A circle measured in
radians.
1 Radian
1 Radian
3.14159 Radians 6.28318 Radians
1 Radian
1 Radian
1 Radian
CREATING OVALS
By changing the aspect of the CIRCLE statement, you can
change the height of the circle it creates and turn it into an oval.
The aspect follows the starting and ending points of an arc in the
CIRCLE statement.
The formula that CIRCLE uses to create a circle assumes that
pixels on the monitor screen are perfectly square. However, the
monitor doesn't create absolutely square pixels, even in resolution
modes 1 and 4the pixels are slightly taller than they are wide. To
compensate for this difference, Amiga BASIC normally uses a
default aspect value that keeps circles looking perfectly round on
the Amiga monitor.
If you don't specify an aspect, CIRCLE uses a .44 aspect auto
matically, a value that creates perfect circles in the default mode 2
screen. If you want to increase or decrease the pixel aspect ratio,
just specify a new aspect value. If you aren't creating an arc, you
127
don't have to specify starting and ending points, but you do have
to use commas to hold their places. As an example, increase the
aspect value to stretch up the circle you've been working with:
CIRCLE{150 ,100) , 50 , , , , 1
You can see the results in Figure 5-11.
Figure 5-11.

creates an oval.
When you increase the aspect value above the default value, the
circle is stretched out vertically; when you decrease the aspect
below the default value, the circle is stretched out horizontally.
Since each screen-resolution mode uses a different size of pixel,
you need to use different aspects to keep the circles perfect for
each mode. In a mode 2 screen, the default value that Amiga BASIC
uses will create round circles automaticallyyou don't have to
specify an aspect value. Mode 1, mode 3, and mode 4 screens,
however, require you to enter a value in order to get round circles.
The following table gives you the circular aspect for each mode:
Screen mode Aspect value
.88
.44
1.76
SECTION 2: IMAGES
128
If you set the aspect value to create ovals and also include
starting and ending points for an arc, CIRCLE will create arcs that
are curved just like the ovaljust as the aspect normally would
create if it were a complete circle.
CREATING MULTI-SIDED FIGURES
AREA and AREAFILL are two Amiga BASIC statements you use
together to create multi-sided figures and fill them with solid colors
or intricate patterns. They work a little like a connect-the-dots
picturefirst you set the invisible dots in the output window with
AREA, and then use AREAFILL to connect the dots, and to fill the
area with a color or pattern.
THE AREA STATEMENT

The AREA statement uses this format:
AREA(address)
The address can be either absolute or relative.

AREA is simple to usejust enter one AREA statement for each
point you want to set in the output window. As an example, the
statement
AREA(120,9B)
sets an invisible point at address (120,95).

To create complex shapes, you use a series of AREA statements
to set the points of the sides of the shapes. You can't set more than
20 points in a row without using an AREAFILL statement to
connect them all together. Once you connect those points with
AREAFILL, though, you can continue setting points for the same
shape, or set points for a new shape.
It's often easier to use relative addresses with the AREA com
mand after you set the first point with an absolute address. In the
example below, which sets the points for a diamond shape, the first
address is an absolute address and the next three addresses are
relative addresses:
AREA(1S0,50)
AREA STEP{100,50)
AREA STEP(-100,SO)
AREA STEP(-100,-50|
129
THE AREAFILL STATEMENT
AREA statements by themselves have no effect on the appear
ance of the output windowthey only set the points for the shape
you're drawing. AREAFILL connects the points with lines and fills in
the interior of the shape with either the foreground color by default,
or with a color or pattern you specify. (If you want to create a shape
that isn't filled in, you have to draw each line of the shape individu
ally, using graphics statements other than AREA/AREAFILL.)
AREAFILL uses this format:
AREAFILL mode number
The mode number is an option that specifies how to fill the area;
you can omit it if you just want to use the foreground color.
In order for AREAFILL to work, you have to precede it with at
least two AREA statements. AREAFILL first connects the points you
set with the AREA statements in the order that you set the points.
When it reaches the last point you set, it connects it to the first
point you set, so you don't have to end your series of AREA
statements with the address that you started with (although it
won't hurt if you do).
After the points are connected, AREAFILL fills the interior and
the boundaries of the shape with the foreground color if you haven't
specified a mode number. Since it fills in the boundaries as well as
the interior, the shape is one solid color; it doesn't have an outline
in a different color.
You can specify a mode number if you want to control the color
of the shape. A 0 will color the shape with a pattern you've created
with the PATTERN statement (discussed later) or, if you haven't
defined a pattern, with the foreground color. If you specify a mode
number of 1, AREAFILL changes the colors of all pixels within the
area defined by the AREA statements to their inverse colors. A
color's inverse color is found in the color register at the opposite end
of the palette. For example, the table below shows the inverse
colors of an eight-color (3-bit-plane) screen:
Color register Inverse-color register
0 7
1 6
2 5
3 4
4 3
5 2
6 1
7 0
SECTION 2: IMAGES
130
If you omit the mode number, AREAFILL assumes a 0 and uses
the current pattern {or the foreground color, if no pattern has
been defined).
To see AREAFILL do its work, add it to the four AREA statements
you used before to set the points of a diamond shape and then run
the program;
AREA(1S0,50)
AREA STEP(100,50)
AREA STEP(-100,50)
AREA STEP(-100,-50)
AREAFILL
You can see the diamond shape appear on the screen, filled with
the foreground color, in Figure 5-12.
Figure 5-12.
The AREA and

AREAFILL statements
create a diamond shape.
If you change the last line of the program to
AREAFILL 1
and run the program again, you'll see the same diamond shape
repeated on the screen, but instead of filling it with the foreground
color, the diamond will appear in the inverse color of the back
ground pixels. Since there are no pixels of any other color within
the AREA boundaries, AREAFILL 1 inverts just the color of the
background pixels.
131
As you create shapes with AREA commands followed by
AREAFILL, you don't have to keep the boundaries of the shapes
from crossing each other. For example, this short program creates
two filled triangles because the side boundaries cross each other,
as you can see in Figure 5-13:
AREA(GO,50}
AREA STP(200,0)
AREA STEP(-200,100)
AREA STEP(200,0)
AREAFILL
Figure 5-13.
You can cross boundary

lines with AREA
statements.
FILLING A SHAPE WITH A PATTERN

If you create a pattern with the PATTERN command (described
later in this chapter), AREAFILL will fill the shape with that pattern,
combining the background and foreground colors, instead of just
filling the shape in with the foreground color. If you set the
AREAFILL mode to 1, the background and foreground colors in the
pattern are displayed using color register 0 for the background color
and the last color register (the inverted color register) for the
foreground, with a one-pixel-wide border the color of the back
ground around the shape.
SECTION 2: IMAGES
132
THE PAINT STATEMENT
As you've seen, the LINE statement gives you the option to fill in
the boxes you create with color. Similarly, you can use AREAFILL to
fill in with a color or a pattern the shapes you create with AREA
statements. Amiga BASIC also allows you to fill in any other
enclosed shapes you've created (with the CIRCLE statement, or
with a series of PSET or LINE statements, for example). Your tool for
doing this is the PAINT statement. Its format is:
PA I NT(address), fill color-register number, border color-
register number
The address can be either absolute or relative. The register

numbers for the paint and border colors are optional: If you include
them, they must be separated by commas. If you omit the fill color-
register number, PAINT assumes that the color you want to fill with
is the foreground color. To fill with a different color, follow the
address with a comma and a color-register number. PAINT will fill
the shape with the color in that register.
An important point to keep in mind when using the PAINT
statement is that it must be used in a refreshing window; that is, a
window created using a window-features number of 16 or higher.
Before you use PAINT, you have to create the outline of a shape.
You can use any of the graphics statements such as CIRCLE, LINE,
or PSET to create the shape, but the outline has to be unbroken,
and it has to be all in one color. If it isn't, PAINT will fill the interior
of the shape and then escape through the break or second outline
color to fill the entire screen.
When you use PAINT, the address specifies the point in the
output window where you want to start filling with color. This
point can be inside or outside the outlined shape. PAINT will fill the
screen around the point with the foreground color until it meets the
outline of the shape or the boundary of the output window. If you
start at a point outside the shape, PAINT changes the color of the
screen ail around the shape, leaving the interior its original color. If
you start at a point inside the shape, PAINT fills in the shape,
leaving the area around the shape its original color.
The foDowing short program creates the circle displayed in
Figure 5-14 (on the next page), and fills it with the current
foreground color:
CIRCLE(140,9D), 100
PAINT(140,90)
133
Figure 5-14.
The PAINT command Ms

in a circle.
To fill a shape with a color other than the current foreground

color, you just include the register number of the color you want.
This PAINT command fills with the color in register number 2:
PAINT(140,90), 2
If you try this PAINT statement with the last circle you created, it
will paint over the boundaries of the circle and fill the entire output
window. That's because PAINT only recognizes boundaries of the
same color as the color it uses to fill with. If you want to fill a shape
with a color other than its border color, you can follow the fill color-
register number with a comma and the color-register number of the
color you want to use as a border As an example, here's PAINT set
up to fill with the color in register 3, recognizing the color in
register 1 as a boundary:
PflINT(120,100), 3, 1
If you enter and run the following program, you'll see the circle in
Figure 5-15, with an outside boundary of foreground color, filled
inside with color 3:
CIRCLE(120,100), 100
PAiNT(120,100), 3, 1
SECTION 2: IMAGES
134
Figure 5-15.
A circle drawn in the

foreground color, filled
with the color in register
number 3.
If you use the PATTERN statement (described next) to set up a

pattern, PAINT will fill with that pattern instead of a solid color and
will use the foreground color for the pattern. If you specify a fill
color-register number, PAINT will still use the pattern to fill the
shape, but will use the color in that register instead of the fore
ground color for the pattern.
THE PATTERN STATEMENT
When you use Amiga BASIC to draw lines and fill in shapes and
areas, you usually draw and fill with solid lines and colors. If you
want to add some variety and texture to your graphics creations,
you can use the PATTERN statement to create patterns that you can
use to draw lines and fill in areas. Once you've created and set
these patterns, any drawing commands that follow a PATTERN
statement will use the line and area patterns instead of solid lines
and colors.
PATTERN uses this format;
PATTERN line mask, pat tern-mask array name
You can omit either the line mask or the pattern-mask array name
from the PATTERN command, but you can't omit both of them.
135
CREATING A LINE PATTERN
To create a line pattern, you must first create a 16-bit mask
that is, a binary (base 2) number that uses 16 ones and zeros. Each
one in the mask stands for the foreground color, each zero stands
for the background color. The binary number 1010101010101010, for
example, is a mask that alternates the foreground and background
colors every pixel. Once you set the line pattern, any lines you draw
with Amiga BASIC will use the pattern in the mask (from left to
right) over and over as many times as necessaryif a line is longer
than 16 pixels, Amiga BASIC repeats the mask until the line is
finished. If the line is shorter than 16 pixels, Amiga BASIC starts at
the beginning (left end) of the mask and uses as much of the
pattern as it can.
If you want to create a dashed-line pattern, try the line mask
1111000011110000, which alternates four pixels of foreground color
with four pixels of background color. If you want a mostly solid line
with small breaks of background, try 1111111111110000. You can exper
iment to find what suits you best when you use the PATTERN
statement to put your line mask into effect.
Converting a binary line mask into a hexadecimal number

The PATTERN statement doesn't accept line masks as a binary
number using ones and zeros, since it can't tell that the number is
a binary (base 2) number. Amiga BASIC would interpret a 16-bit
binary number as a very large number, in the quadrillions. You have
to convert the binary bit mask into either a decimal (base 10)
number or a hexadecimal (base 16) number, which is what the
PATTERN statement expects to find. It's much easier to convert
binary to hexadecimal, which PATTERN will recognize. To convert
the bit mask into its hexadecimal equivalent, just break the bit
mask into groups of four bits, and interpret each group using
this table:
Binary Hexadecimal Binary Hexadecimal
0000 0 1000 8
0001 1 1001 9
0010 2 1010 A
0011 3 1011 B
0100 4 1100 C
0101 5 1101 D
0110 6 1110 E
0111 7 mi F
SECTION 2: MAGES
136
For example, the mask 1110011111100111 would break into 1110 0111
1110 0111. Using the table, these four groups translate into E, 7, E,
and 7, so the entire hexadecimal number is E7E7. In Amiga BASIC,
hexadecimal numbers are always preceded by &H, so the mask
becomes &HE7E7 in hexadecimal. If the &H isn't specified,
PATTERN assumes you are using a decimal (base 10) number.
Although you can use a decimal number, you will probably find it
easier to work with hexadecimal values.
Applying a line pattern in the PATTERN statement

Once you've designed a line pattern, turned it into a binary mask
and then converted it into a hexadecimal number, you can put it
into effect by applying it in a PATTERN statement. To draw a box
using the line pattern you just created, try this short program:
PATTERN 4HE7E7
L1NE(65,4O) - STEP(150,100), , B
In Figure 5-16, you can see how Amiga BASIC draws the box
using the line pattern you set with the &HE7E7 line mask. If you
continue using the LINE statement, Amiga BASIC will use the same
pattern to draw any other lines and boxes you create. The line pat
tern won't affect any circles or arcs drawn with the CIRCLE state
ment, though.
Figure 5-16.
A box drawn with

dotted lines set by the
PATTERN command.
137
To set the line pattern back to a solid line, use
PATTERN 4HFFFF
which sets the line mask as a solid line (all ones).
CREATING AN AREA PATTERN

A line pattern is one-dimensionalyou can set it by creating
a single, 16-bit binary mask that is a string of ones and zeros. To
create an area pattern, you have to create a two-dimensional mask
using an array of ones and zeros. For an area, PATTERN uses an
array that's always 16 bits wide, and two or a power of two high. In
other words, a bit mask for an area is like a pile of 16-bit line
maskseither 2, 4, 8, 16, or another power of two high. To create
the mask, it's helpful to design it first on a piece of graph paper
marked 16 squares wide, and as high as you want to make the area
(as long as it's a power of two). Mark it in with ones where you
want the foreground color to appear, and zeros where you want the
background color. When you're finished, you should end up with a
column of 16-bit binary numbers. As an example, this 8-line-high
area mask creates a square polka-dot pattern:
0000111100001111
0000111100001111
0000000000000000
0000000000000000
1111000011110000
1111000011110000
0000000000000000
oooooooooooooooo
Putting the area pattern mask into an integer array

To store the area pattern mask for the PATTERN statement, you
have to put it into an integer array To do so, you first have to trans
late each line into a hexadecimal number, just as you did for the
line mask. The polka-dot area mask you just created translates as:
0F0F
OFOF
0000
0000
F0F0
FOFO
0000
0000
SECTION 2: IMAGES
138
After you translate each line of the mask, you count the number
of lines and create an integer array in your program using exactly
the same number of elements as you have lines. For the polka-dot
pattern in our example, you need to specify eight elements (one for
each line), so you dimension the array to 7 with a DIM statement.
(Since each array starts with element number 0, you actually have 8
elements in an array dimensioned to 7.) You then assign the lines of
the mask in top-to-bottom order to the elements of the array. The
program lines below assign the polka-dot mask to the integer array
POLKADOT% (the % signifies an integer array):
DIM POLKADOTX (7}
POLKADOTX(0] = 4H0F0F
POLKADQTX|1) - &HOFOF
POLKADOTXU) = AHOOOO
POLKADOTX(3) = iHOOOO
POLKADDTX(1) = iHFOFO
POLXfiDDTXf5) = J.HFOFO
P0LKADDT%(6) =* 4HOOO0
PDLKADDT7.(7) = 4H0OO0
Applying an area pattern in the PATTERN statement

Once you've created an area pattern, you apply it by putting the
name of your integer array after the line-pattern mask in the
PATTERN command, separating it with a comma. If you don't want
to apply a line-pattern mask, you can leave its place empty, insert a
comma, and then include the integer array name. Any Amiga
BASIC graphics command you use afterward that fills in an area
will use the graphics pattern you set. The following command sets
the area pattern you just designed:
PATTERN, PDLKADDTX
139
The following short program brings everything together to draw
the box filled with polka-dots shown in Figure 5-17:
DIM PQLKADDTX(7]
POLKADCTX(O) - 4HOF0F
POLKADOTXf1} = &HQF0F
PQLKAD0TX{2) = 4H000O
P0LKADDTX(3) = 4H0000
P0LKADDTX(4) = &HF0F0
PDLKADDTX(5) = 4HFOF0
POLKftDOTXlG) = 4HOO00
P0LKAD0TX[7) - 4H0O00
PATTERN, PQLKADDTX
LINE(70,10] - 5TEP(150,1GC , BF
Figure 5-17
A polka-dot box
created with the LINE DIM poIkadoUt?)

and PATTERN PolkadoMB) z SHFBF
statements. polkadotm) : fiHFBF
polkadot^(2) = SH6
PolkadotzO) = SKB
PoII<adotzC4) = SHF8F
polkadotz(5) = 8HF8F
poikadoUC6) = SH0
polkadotz(7) = SH6
PATTERN, poikadotZ
LINE(7flilB) - STEPQ58,i663, , BF
If you type this program yourself, you may notice that BASIC
abbreviates the numbers you type in for each array element. For
example, after you type &H0000 and press RETURN, BASIC converts
the number to &H0, which has the same value.
SECTION 2; IMAGES
140
To turn the area pattern back to a solid foreground color, you
create a simple two-element integer array, assign a solid pattern
mask, then apply it in a PATTERN command:
dim solidxi1)
sol1dx[0) = 4hffff
SQLIDXd ) - &HFFFF
PATTERN, SQLIDX
CHANGING PATTERN COLORS

Keep m mind as you use line and area patterns that you're not
locked into any specific colors. The ones and zeros in the mask just
specify which bits will use the foreground and background colors.
You can use the COLOR statement to change the background and
foreground colors to different registers or use the PALETTE state
ment to change the colors in the background and foreground color
registers to create some vivid patterns.
In this chapter, you've learned Amiga BASIC statements

that color pixels, draw lines, and create shapes filled with
colors and patterns. You can use these statements together
to create images on the screen. In the next chapter, you'll
learn how to add text to your images, put the images in
windows that change size, and copy part of your image and
transfer it to another location in a window.
141
CHAPTER SIX
AMIGA BASIC
GRAPHICS: ODDS
AND ENDS
Amiga BASIC has a number of miscellaneous graphics
statements and functions that don't create screens and
windows and fill them with graphics. Instead, these "odds
and ends" statements and functions allow you to label your
graphics, change their size with the size of a window, or
copy them from one area of the screen to another.
You can use several of these statements and functions to
work creatively with text; you can add text to your pictures
with the PRINT statement, and you can use the LOCATE and
COLOR statements to position your text in just the right
location with the colors you want. To keep track of the
text's location, you can use the CSRLIN and POS(O)
functions.
Other statements and functions help you adapt your
graphics to the changing dimensions of a resizable win
dow. You can use the window() function within the
program to read the window's width and height, and use
this information to change the graphics to fit the window's
new size when the program user changes it with the sizing
gadget. You can also use the WINDOWO function to check
the window's ID number, to see how many colors it will
support, and to examine other pertinent window informa
tion. To check the color of an individual pixel within the
window, you can use the POINT function.
The GET and PUT statements allow you to cut and paste
graphics in a window. With GET and PUT, you can also
present a series of pictures in rapid succession in the
output window.
CHARACTER ADDRESSING
When you print text characters in the output window to

accompany your graphics, it's important to be able to position the
characters accurately. In order to do so, you need to know how to
use character addressing.
You use an entirely different addressing system to specify a text-
character address than you use to specify a pixel address. Instead
of counting columns and rows of pixels, you count lines and
columns of text characters. Instead of moving an invisible graphics
cursor from pixel to pixel, you move an invisible text cursor from
character to character.
SECTION 2: IMAGES
144
Text-character addresses start with a different pair of numbers
than pixel addresses; instead of lines and columns starting at 0,
text lines and columns start at 1. For example, the character in the
upper left corner of the window is in address 1,1, not address (0,0).
Text-address numbering starts in the upper left corner of the
window, and the numbers increase as you move to the right or
move down the screen, just like the numbering system for pixel
addresses. Figure 6-1 shows how the lines and columns of text are
numbered.
COLUMNS Figure 6-1.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 a 9 10 11 12 -
Line and column num

1
2 bering for text addresses.
..... .......
3 I
4
R 5 A
,
......
O 6
......
....
......
W 7
s
8
9
10
.,...
11
......
12
.......
z I
......
""
Instead of specifying first the column and then the row as a pixel
address does, a text-character address specifies first the line and
then the column. You separate the two numbers with a comma, but
you don't enclose them in parentheses as you do a pixel address.
For example, a character in the fourth line down the screen seven
columns to the right is at address 4.7-
USING DIFFERENT FONT SIZES
The size of the characters in the font you use with Amiga BASIC
determines the number of text lines and columns that fit on the
screen, so of course this affects the numbers you use in a text
address. When you first open Amiga BASIC, it uses the same font
Amiga BASIC Graphics: Odds and Ends
145
size you're working with in the Workbench. The Preferences
program on the Workbench disk allows you to change the font you
use on the Workbench screen.
There are two font-size options available: the default 60-column
font and the 80-column font. The 60-column font uses characters
that measure 10 pixels wide by 9 pixels high, wide enough to
show up clearly on TV sets and composite video monitors. The 80-
column font uses smaller characters to fit more text on the monitor
screen. These characters measure 8 pixels wide by 8 pixels high,
skinnier and shorter than 60-column characters. 80-column charac
ters aren't always legible on TV sets and composite video screens,
but they're very readable on RGB monitors.
The size of the characters in a window also depends on the
resolution of the screen the window belongs to. All characters in
the font have the same size as measured in pixels, but since the
size of the pixels changes with different screen resolutions, the
overall size of the characters changes also. For example, characters
are twice as wide in a screen that uses low-resolution pixels as
they are in a screen that uses high-resolution pixels. Characters are
twice as high in a screen that uses non-interlaced pixels as they
are in a screen that uses interlaced pixels.
The combination of font and resolution determines how many
characters will fit in a full-screen window. The following chart
shows how many rows and columns of text fit in a full-screen
window with a title bar and sizing gadget.
Mode 1 Mode 2 Mode 3 Mode 4
60-column font: 20 rows 20 rows 42 rows 42 rows
30 cols 61 cols 30 cols 61 cols

80-column font: 23 rows 23 rows 48 rows 48 rows
38 cols 77 cols 38 cols 77 cols
In Figure 6-2, you can see screens of four different resolutions on

the monitor at once. Each screen displays the same sentence using
the same font. Notice the difference in character size.
SECTION 2 IMAGES
146
Figure 6-2.
The size of text charac

ters depends on the
resolution of the screen
they're printed on.
THE PRINT STATEMENT
Every BASIC programmer is familiar with the PRINT statement

you use it to print messages on the screen. PRINT uses this format:
PRINT expression list
The expression list can be any combination of strings, constants,

numeric variables, and string variables, separated with either a
comma or a semicolon.
It's important to know where each PRINT statement leaves the
text cursor when it's done printing. If the expression list ends in a
comma, the text cursor stays on the same line but moves to the
next comma stop, somewhat like a tab stop on a typewriter. If the
expression list ends in a semicolon, the text cursor stays on the
same line at the end of the material it just printed. If there is neither
a comma nor a semicolon at the end of the expression list, the text
cursor jumps to the beginning of the next line. You can get more
precise information about text-cursor placement in the description
of the PRINT statement in the Amiga BASIC manual.
147
THE LOCATE STATEMENT
If you mix text with graphics in a window and want to print text
at an exact character address to fit with the graphics, trying to
position the text cursor with numerous PRINT statements using
commas and semicolons can be very tedious and sometimes
impossible. Not only do you have to use a separate PRINT statement
for each line you want to move down the screen, but if you go too
far down the screen, the text might scroll up and ruin the position
of everything else. For precisely positioning text, you're much
better off using the LOCATE statement.
The LOCATE statement specifies a location on the screen
where the next PRINT statement you use will start printing. It uses
this format:
LOCATE ling number, column number
The line and column numbers that specify the text-character

address are optional, but if you don't supply them, the LOCATE
statement won't relocate the text cursor. You can specify both the
line number and the column number, or you can omit one or the
other. If you leave out the line number, you need to put a comma
before the column number. If you include only the line number, you
don't need a comma at all.
The following LOCATE statements show examples of the three
possible types of addresses:
Statement Result
LOCATE 9, 24 Moves the text cursor to line 9,

column 24.
LOCATE 4 Moves the text cursor to line 4
and uses the column number of
the text cursor's current address.
LOCATE . 45 Moves the text cursor to column
45 and uses the row number of
the text cursor's current address.
LOCATE STATEMENT EXAMPLES

When you use the LOCATE statement with the PRINT statement,
you can position text accurately on the screen. In this short
program, a FOR.. .NEXT loop changes the address in the LOCATE
SECTION 2: IMAGES
148
statement in a series from 1,1 to 19,19 to print a diagonal line of
words across the screen:
for i - i to 19
LOCATE i, i
PRINT "Diagonal"
NEXT i
Figure 6-3.
[Diagonal
LOCATE in a
FOX i = 1 TO if FOR ... NEXT loop
LOCATE I* I
creates a diagonal
PRINT "Mag
NEXT i line of words.
Diagonal
Diagonal
Diagonal
Diagonal
Diagonal
Diagonal ;
Diagonal
Diagonal
Diagonal
Another good use of LOCATE is to keep the text cursor m the

same location so that the PRINT statement following it prints new
text that covers the old text. The following program counts from 1
to 100, printing the numbers in the same spot on the screen:
LOCATE 11,5
PRINT "The count is now:";
FDR i = 1 TO 100
LOCATE 11 , 22
PRINT i
NEXT i
149
LOCATING THE TEXT CURSOR WITH
THE CSRLIN AND POS(O) FUNCTIONS
Many times you'll want to align some new text with text already
on the screen. You can use the LOCATE statement, but it may be
difficult to find the exact location you need. For example, to figure
the address for the second LOCATE statement in the last program,
you have to add up the characters in the string The count is now:
and add the total to the location of the first LOCATE statement
along with an extra count to add a space after now:. You can use
two functions, CSRLIN and POS(O), to locate and record the address
of the text cursor at any time for use in a later LOCATE statement.
CSRLIN returns the Sine number of the text cursor's position.
You can assign the value it returns to a variable for storage. For
example,
x - CSRLIN
stores the line number of the text cursor's current position in the
variable x.
POS{0) returns the column number of the text cursors position.
Like the CSRLIN function, you can assign the value POS(O) returns to
a variable for storage. For example,
y - PDS(O)
stores the column number of the text cursor's current position

in the variable y.
By using both functions at once, you can record the current ad
dress of the text cursor at any time using two variables. For exam
ple, the following program is a revised version of the last counting
program. Its results are the same, but the second LOCATE state
ment doesn't use a specific addressit uses the text-cursor loca
tion taken at the end of the PRINT statement, stored in x and y, to
set a new address one column past the end of The count is now:.
locate 11, s
PRINT "The count 15 now:";
X - CSRLIN
y = PDS(O)
FDR 1 = 1 TD 100
LOCATE x, y
PRINT 1
NEXT 1
Notice the semicolon at the end of the first PRINT statements

keeps the text cursor at the end of the string it just printed, so
SECTION 2: IMAGES
150
CSRLIN and POS(O) can read its address. Notice also that the second
LOCATE statement put the text cursor directly after the end of the
The count is now:, but the number is printed with a space before
it. That's because the PRINT statement always inserts a space
before a positive number. To position text effectively, it's important
that you know where the PRINT statement leaves the text cursor.
USING THE COLOR STATEMENT WITH PRINT
In the last chapter, you used the COLOR statement to set the
foreground and background colors for the drawing statements. You
can also use COLOR to set the foreground and background colors
for text. When PRINT puts characters on the screen, it uses the
foreground color to create the characters and the background color
to create the background for the characters.
If you try the following statements, you'll see text printed with
color 3 on a background strip of color 2:
COLOR 3, 2
PRINT "New colors!"
If you want to get back to the default text colors, use:
COLOR 1, 0
If you're putting text on top of graphics figures, you can set the
background color of the text to match the figure's colors and blend
the characters into the figure, or you can set the background color
to a different color to make the text stand out as a strip against the
figure. The following program draws three shapes in different colors
in the output window and then uses LOCATE to print labels on
each shape. The background and foreground colors of the text
are changed for each labelin two of the shapes, the text's back
ground matches the shape's color. In the third shape, the text's
background is set to a different color to make the text stand out.
The LOCATE statements in the program use addresses set for the
60-column text font. If you run it using the 80-column font, the
labels won't show up in the right places.
SCREEN 1, G40, 200, 3, 2
WINDOW 2, "Shapes ", , 15, 1
MakeCircle:
CIRCLE(1G0,50) , 100 , 5
PAINT(160,501. 5, 5
(continued)
151
MakeTrlangle:
COLOR 6
AREA(480,5)
AREA STEP[120,90)
AREA 5TEP(-210,0)
AREAFILL
Mak eRec tang le:

LINE(20,110) - (500,180), 1, BF
AddLabels:
LOCATE 6, 11
COLOR 2, 5
PRINT "Circle"
LOCATE 8, 45
COLOR 2, 6
PRINT "Triangle"
LOCATE 17, 26
COLOR 2, 0
PRINT "Rectangle"
Figure 6-4.
Text using different back

ground and foreground
colors is added to shapes
in the window.
SECTION 2: IMAGES
152
AN INTRODUCTION TO INTERACTIVE GRAPHICS
The graphics you have created in examples up to this point all

depend on a stable environment: The window stays the same size,
the number of bit planes remains the same, and the screen resolu
tion is set at one resolution. You can't always depend on stable
conditions for graphics, though. Intuition, the Amiga's user inter
face, allows the user to move windows around the screen, change
window size, and change the graphics environment in many ways.
When the environment changes, your program should be able to
create interactive graphicsgraphics that change in response to
their environment.
Two Amiga BASIC functionsWINDOW{) and POINTgive you
the ability to read graphics conditions. You can use the results of
these functions to create a program with graphics that change to
fit the changing conditions; for example, the size of the figures
might change to fit the size of the window, or the program might
determine which of several windows has been selected with the
pointer, and start creating graphics in that window You can also
use the results to create a subroutine that will work with many
different resolutions and window sizes. Then you can store that
subroutine and use it in different programs to perform the same
task, confident that it will work with different resolutions and
window sizes.
You can also use these functions to simplify pixel-address cal
culations; by reading the current size of the window, you know
instantly where the borders are, so you won't specify a pixel ad
dress outside the border. Reading the current window size can
also save you time trying to figure out just how many pixels a
sizing gadget and title bar add or subtract from the window's
interior area.
THE WINDOWO FUNCTION
Don't confuse the WINDOWO function with the WINDOW state

ment. The WINDOW statement creates a window on a screen. The
WINDOW() function reads nine different window conditions and
returns them to the program. The function also has an entirely
different format:
WINDDN(condjfjor) number)
153
The condition number can be any integer from 0 to 8, and
determines which condition WINDOW{) will read. The WINDOW()
function does no work m a program line by itself; it returns a value
that should be assigned to a variable or used in a statement.
The following list gives the nine condition numbers followed by
the condition that they read:
Condition Value
number returned
0 The window ID number of the window that's been

selected with the pointer. The selected window is the
window whose title bar is highlighted; all the other
windows have ghosted title bars.
1 The window ID number of the current output window
where PRINT and graphics statements do their work.
2 The width in pixels of the interior of the current output
window.
3 The height in pixels of the interior of the current output
window.
4 The column number of the pixel address in the output
window of the bottom left corner of the text cursor. You
can use this value along with the value for condition
number 5 to exactly locate text in the window.
5 The row number of the pixel address in the output
window of the bottom left corner of the text cursor.
6 The highest color-register number available in the
output window You can use this value to tell how many
colors are available in the window.
7 The pointer to the current Intuition window. This
pointer is a memory address used by advanced
programmers in assembly-language subroutines.
8 The pointer to the current Intuition Rastport. This
pointer is a memory address used by advanced
programmers in assembly-language subroutines.
WINDOW*) FUNCTION EXAMPLES

Since WINDOW{) is a function and doesn't do much by itself,
the best way to get a feel for its use is to try it in programs. The
following program creates three different windows, numbered 2, 3,
and 4, on the screen and sets window number 4 as the output win
dow, since it was the last window created- It then prints out the
number of the current output window and the currently selected
SECTION 2: IMAGES
154
window, using WINDOW(l) and WINDOW(O) to read those values. If
you move the pointer around the screen while the program is
running and select different windows, you'll see the number of the
selected window change.
WINDOW 2, "Window 2 ", (0,0) (280 ,80] , 15
WINDOW 3, "Window 3 ", (320,0 - (600 ,80) , 15
WINDOW 4, "Window 4 ", (0,100. - (280,180), 15

PRINT "Output window 15";
x1 = PDS(O): y1 = CSRLIN
PRINT
PRINT "Selected window 15";

x2 - POS(O) : y2 = CSRLIN
Loop :
LOCATE yi, x1
PRINT WINDOW)1)
LOCATE y2, x2
PRINT WINDOW(O)
GOTO Loop
You can see how this program looks in Figure 6-5.
Figure 6-5.
The WINDOW(O) and

WINDOW(l) functions
show the output and se
lected windows
The next program uses WINDOW(2) and WINDOW{3) to return the

size of the output window and WINDOW(6) to return the number of
colors the window supports. The first 12 lines of the program create
a screen and an output window, then create an area pattern to
155
make the graphics that will follow interesting. The 13th line ties the
timer to the RND function to make it truly random. The fast 11 lines
are a continuous loop that fills the output window with 18-sided
AREAFILL figures.
In the first two lines of the loop, two WINDOW{6) functions return
the number of colors available, which are modified by the RND and
INT functions to return two random integers from 0 to the highest
color-register number available. The COLOR statement uses these
two integers to set random foreground and background colors.
The FOR... NEXT loop that follows sets 18 random points using
the AREA statement. The address of the random points is set using
the WIND0W{2) and WINDOW(3) functions so that the address will
never fall outside the window boundaries. The AREAFILL statement
that follows the FOR ... NEXT loop connects the points and fills in
the figure, and the GOTO statement after that starts the loop over
again to create another random 18-sided figure. In Figure 6-6, you
see an example of the random graphics this program generates.
When you run this program, try changing the size of the win
dow with the sizing gadget. When the window changes size, the
random figures created in it will adapt their size to reflect the new
size of the window.
SCREEN 1, 640, 200, 4, 2
WINDOW 2, "Sizi ng Graphics ", , 15, 1
DIM area.patX(7)
area . patX(0) = $H3F3F
area.patX(1) = SH9F9F
area . patX(2) = SHCFCF
area.patX(3) = SHE7E7
area . patX(4) = SHF3F3
area . patX(5) n SHF9F9
area . patX(6) SHFCFC
area . patX(7) = SH7E7E
PATTERN , area. patX
RANDOMIZE TIMER
Loop :
forecolor = INT((W1NDOU(6) + 1) RND(1

backcolor = INT((WINDDW(G) + 1> . RND(1
COLOR forec olor, backcolor
FOR l = 1 TO 18
x = INT(WIHDDW{2) - 1) RND(1|
y - INT(WIND0W(3} - 1) RND(1)
AREA(x, y)
NEXT i
AREAFILL
GOTO Loop
SECTION 2: IMAGES
156
Figure 6-6.
The WINDOWO function

sees the size and colors of
these shapes to fit within
the window they're
drawn in.
This last WINDOWO function example is a subroutine that takes

any text string, along with the text row and column position where
you want it to be printed, and prints the text in a box. WIND0W{4)
and WIND0W(5) return the pixel addresses of the beginning and
ending locations of the text cursor. The LINE statement then draws
a box around the text using these addresses, plus or minus a few
pixels up, down, right, and left to adjust for extenders (like the tail
on the p) and to provide clearance over the top of the characters.
The first four lines of the program create the string, set the address
of the text cursor, and then call the subroutine, Boxlt You can see
the results of the program in Figure 6-7 (on the next page).
text$ - "Box it up!"
row = 4: column = 8
GOSUB Boxlt
END
Boxlt:
LOCATE row, column
x1 = WINDOW^) : y1 - WINDOWfS
PRINT text*;
x2 = NINDQW{4) y2 - UINDDU(S)
LINE(x1 - 2,y1 7) - (x2 + 1,y2 + 2 3, B
RETURN
157
Figure 6-7
WIND0W{4) and
WIND0W(5) locate the texts = "Box it uj*
start and end of a text row - 4: colunn = 3
string to allow you to GOSUB Boxlt
ENS
draw a box around it
Boxlt:
sJL- HIHS0HC5): yl :
PRINT texts;
x2 = HIND0HC4): y2 = HIHHttf
LINE Cxi - 2,yi - 7) - Cx2 *
RETURN
THE POINT FUNCTION
The POINT function looks at any pixel in the output window and
returns the number of the color register used to color that pixel. Its
format is simple:
POINT(pixel address)
The pixel address can't be a relative address, it can only be an

absolute address.
The following short program creates three different colored areas
on the output window. In a FOR -.. NEXT loop, it then locates the
text cursor inside each of the areas and uses the POINT function to
read the color and set the foreground and background color of the
text so it will show up in the area when it's printed:
LINE(O.O) - (620,60), BF
LINE(0,B1) - (620,120), 2, BF
LINE(0 ,121) - (620,180) , 3, BF
FDR i = 0 TO 2
LDCATE(7 i) + 3, 5
background = POINT(WINDOWf1) , NIND0N(5 )
COLOR background - 1, background

PRINT "Popocatepetl"
NEXT i
SECTION 2: IMAGES
158
COPYING AND PASTING GRAPHICS
There are times when you will want to copy graphics from one
section of the output window to another section of the output
window without redrawing them. Amiga BASIC has two state
mentsGET and PUTthat allow you to copy a square section of
any window and move it to another window or to another location
in the same window.
THE GET STATEMENT

You use the GET statement to specify the square section of
the output window, called a graphics block, that you want to copy.
You also use GET to specify the name of the variable array you
want to use to store the block in. The format for GET is:
GET opposing corner addresses, array name(index number)
Like the box options of the LINE statement, GET needs two
opposing corner pixel addresses to define a graphics block. They
can only be absolute addresses, not relative addresses. They're
enclosed in parentheses and separated by a dash; for example,
(30,0} - (60.40) defines a block 31 pixels wide and 41 pixels high.
The array name is the name of a variable array that you use to
store the contents of the graphics block. It's followed by an optional
index number in parentheses; the index number is explained
later in this chapter.
Creating a variable array for graphics-block storage

Before you use a GET statement, you have to create a variable
array to store the graphics data from the graphics block. You create
the array by setting its size with a DIM statement. You can use any
kind of variable for the array except a string variable, but the best
array to use is a short integer array, specified by adding a % sign at
the end of the variable name.
The size of the graphics block determines the size of the array
the larger the graphics block, the larger the array has to be to store
the block. A graphics block is measured in three dimensions:
width, height, and depth. The width and height are measured in
pixels. The depth is determined by the depth of the screen the
graphics block is on, and is measured in bit planes. As an example,
consider a graphics block stretching from pixel (25,3) to pixel
(240,76) on a screen three bit planes deep. The dimensions of the
graphics block are 216 pixels wide (column 25 to column 240.
inclusive) by 74pixels high (row 3 to row 76, inclusive) by 3 bit
planes deep (the depth of the screen),
Amiga BASIC Graphics Odds and Ends
159
A short review of arrays might help you understand how GET
uses an array to store the graphics block. When you first create an
array wth a DIM statement, you set the number of elements in
the array For example,
DIM graphiC5X(34)
creates an array named graphics% with 35 elements numbered 0 to

34. Each array element is a variable that can store data, and is
specified by the index number in the parentheses. For example,
graphics%(0) is the first element in the array, graphics%(l) is the
second element, graphics%(2) the third element, and so on.
How the array stores graphics data

The short integer array you use to store a graphics block uses
two bytes of RAM to store the contents of each element of the array
Each element can store a number as low as -32768 or as high as
32767, or it can store 16 bits of graphics data from the GET
statement. When GET uses the array to store a graphics block, it
uses the first three elements (0, 1, and 2) to store the dimensions of
the graphics block. The first element of the array stores the width
of the block, the second element stores the height of the block, and
the third element stores the depth of the block.
The rest of the array stores the graphics data of the graphics
block. It stores them by bit planes, starting with the first row of bits
in the first bit plane and working down to the last row of bits in the
first bit plane, and then does the same thing for each of the bit
planes that follow Figure 6-8 shows you how the bit planes are
stored in the array elements.
Notice that GET doesn't break up an element at the end of a bit-
plane row. If there aren't enough bits to fill up the last element of the
row, it just fills it partially and fills the rest of the element with
zeros. For example, it takes three elements to store a bit row of a
graphics block that's 35 pixels wide. The first two array elements
store 32 of the bits in the row, and the third element stores 3 bits
its other 13 bits are tacked on the end as zeros.
SECTION 2: IMAGES
160
Graphics block Figure 6-8.
fag aa a q b cjn;
f'gg a g a g a a a no; How an array stores the
qdamaamaddooo=
minnrn
graphics data of a graph
ics block.
LiCiL;Pw2~czi
Bit plane 1
Elen nl 3 da BM nt 4 Dan nt B
Row ia.
Hani: Bit pl.no 3
Elec enl 6 Ele B
nt 7 Elen ant 8
Row 2: DID! DICI BDBBBDBDBB OBBfl BGGB GG |

Elan MOD 8 El* nt 10 Elen ent 11
Row 3:
Haw 4:
etc.
Calculating the size of the array

To figure the size of the array you need to store a graphics block,
first figure out how many array elements you need to store one bit-
plane row of the block. To get that figure, just divide the width of
the block in pixels by 16, which gives you the number of pixels
each element of a short integer array will hold. If you have any
leftover pixels, add one element to the results. For example, if you
have a block that's 35 pixels wide, the array needs 3 elements: 35
divided by 16 yields 2 with a remainder of 3. The remaining three
pixels need an entire array element for storage, so the total number
of elements needed for one line is 3.
Next, multiply the number of elements for one bit-plane row
by the height and depth of the graphics block. This gives you the
number of elements you need to store the graphics data for the
entire block. Add three more elements to store the three dimen
sions of the block, and you have the total size of the array you need
to store the block.
161
Try an example: If you're going to store a graphics block that
stretches from (36,5) to (105,72) in a 16-color (4-bit-plane) screen, you
have a block that's 70 pixels wide by 68 pixels high by 4 bit planes
deep. It takes 5 array elements to store one line (70 divided by 16
yields 4 with a remainder of 6, so it takes 5 elements). Multiply that
by the height (68) and the depth (4), and you get 1360. Add 3 to
store the dimensions of the block, and you get a total of 1363
dimensions. You use the statement
Dim blockX(1362)
to create an integer array named bhck% with exactly 1363 ele

ments. (Each array always starts with element number 0, so if you
dimension it up to element 1362, as you did in the statement before,
you actually get 1363 elements in the array)
Storing the graphics block in the array

Once you create the array, you can follow it with a GET state
ment to copy the graphics block into the array. Just follow the
opposing corner addresses with a comma and then the name of
the array:
GET(3G,5) - (105,72), block*
Copying several equal-sized graphics blocks in one array

If you want to copy several graphics blocks of the same size, you
can avoid the work of creating an array for each block by storing all
the blocks in one array. When you dimension the array, first figure
out the size you need for one block using the method described
before. Then dimension your array as a two-dimensional array,
using the size of one block as the first dimension and the number
of blocks you want to store as the second dimension.
For example, to copy five different blocks, each the size of the
block used m the last example, each block needs 1363 elements for
storage. You would create an integer array that measures 1363
elements by 5 blocks with this statement:
DIM blockX(1362,4)
Remember that since each index number starts at 0, block%

actually measures 1363 elements by 5 blocks even though the DIM
numbers are one smaller.
SECTION 2: IMAGES
162
When you save the five graphics blocks with five GET state
ments, the two index numbers change for each block. The first
block is stored starting at block%(0,0) and ending at block%(1362,0).
The second block starts at block%(0,l) and ends at block%(1362,1).
And so it goes until the fifth block is stored starting at block%(0,4)
and ending at block%(1362,4).
To point to the beginning of the data for each graphics block,
you just set the first index number of the array to 0, then set the
second index number to the number of the block (0 to 4). This
makes it very easy to use different GET statements to store different
blocks with the same variable. For example, these five GET state
ments store five different graphics blocks in five different parts of
the block% array:
GET(36,5) - (105,72), blockX(O.O)

GET(46,75) - (115,142), blockX(0,1)
GET(136,S) - (205,72), block*<0,2)
GET(23G,S) - (305,721, block2(0,3)
GET(36,10S) - (105,172), blockX(0,4)
Copying several unequal-sized graphics blocks in the same array

If you want to store several graphics blocks of unequal size in
the same array you use a one-dimensional array just as you would
to save a single graphics block. To dimension the array, you must
first figure out the number of elements each block needs for
storage, using the same method you use for a single block. Then
add all the values together to come up with the total number of
elements you need to store all the blocks together. When you store
the blocks, you store them in the array one after the other.
As an example, consider using GET to store three different
blocks, all on a 3-bit-plane screen. The first block stretches from
(0,0) to (158,40), the second from (26,75) to (310,146), and the third
from (50.150) to (74,174). When you figure the number of array ele
ments needed to store each block, you come up with 1233 elements
for the first block, 3891 elements for the second block, and 153
elements for the third block. Adding all the elements together, you
find you need an array with 5277 elements, so you use
DIM blockX(5276)
to create one.
When you copy the three graphics blocks to the array, you use
elements 0 to 1232 for the first block, which requires 1233 elements.
You use elements 1233 to 5123 for the second block, which requires
163
3891 elements, and you use elements 5124 to 5276 for the third block,
which requires 153 elements. Note the star ting-element index
number for each block so you can use it with three different GET
statements when you copy the three blocks. For example, these
statements save the three example blocks, starting at index number
0 for the first block, index number 1233 for the second block, and
index number 5124 for the third block:
GET(0,0) - (1S8.40), block:t(0)
GET(2G,75) - (310,146), blockX(1233)

GET(5Q,150) - (74,174), b1ockX(5124)
You can store as many different blocks in one array as you wish,
as long as you dimension the array large enough and you don't run
out of memory.
THE PUT STATEMENT

The PUT statement takes the image stored in an array by GET
and puts it in the output window at the location you specify. It uses
this format:
PUT address, array name(index number), mergechoice
The address can be an absolute or a relative pixel address. The

array name is the same one you used to store the graphics blocks
with the GET statement. The index number is optional, you use it
only if you saved more than one graphics block in the array. The
merge choice is also optional; it's one of five words that specify
how the graphics block merges with graphics that it may cover in
the window.
Setting the PUT address

The address you include in the PUT statement specifies where
the upper left corner of the graphics block will appear in the output
window. You can use any address in the window. If you specify an
address that runs some of the graphics block out of the window,
PUT trims off any part that goes beyond the window's boundaries.
The array name and index

When you specify an array name for PUT, use the same array
name you used to save the graphics block using GET. If you didn't
use an index number with GET, you won't need one in PUT. For
example, if you saved a graphics block in the array swath%, then
the statement
PUTf0,0),
SECTION 2: IMAGES
164
will put the graphics block stored in swath% in the window with
the upper left corner of the block located at pixel (0,0).
If you saved several blocks in one array and used different index
numbers to mark the beginning of each block, then use the same
array name and index number for each block that you used in the
GET statement. For example, to display the five equal-sized blocks
you saved earlier in the array named block%, use these five
PUT statements:
PUT(0,0), b)ock%(0,0)
PUT(80 ,0) , blockX(0,1}
PUT(160,0), blockXfO,2)
PUT(240,0), blockX(0,3)
PUT(0,100), blockX(0,4)
You can copy the same block to different locations in the win
dow as many times as you want. Just use the same array name
and index with different addresses. For instance, these four state
ments copy the graphics block stored in swath% to four different
locations in the output window:
PUT(0,0),
PUT(50,50), awathX
PUT(110,100), swathX
PUT(204,0}, swathX
The merge choice

There are five merge choices you can add to the PUT statement
to affect the way the graphics block merges with the graphics
underneath the block in the output window. They are:
PSET
Puts the graphics block in the window, covering up any
graphics that lie beneath it.
PRESET
Turns every color m the graphics block to its inverse color, and
then puts the graphics block in the window, covering up any
graphics that lie beneath it.
AND
Performs the Boolean AND operation between each pixel in the
graphics block and the pixel in the output window that it
covers up and displays the result. It's easiest to understand if
you concentrate on the results, rather than the process.
Wherever there is background color (color-register 0) in the
output window, AND won't lay down any of the contents of the
165
graphics block- Wherever there is the last possible color of the
window (the highest possible color-register number), AND puts
down the colors of the graphics-block just as they are. Any
other colors in the output window combine with the graphics
block colors to create new colors predictable only by using
Boolean AND algebra.
OR
Performs the Boolean operation OR between each pixel of the
covers. OR lays down the graphics block in its original colors
wherever there is background color, and doesn't lay down
anything where the last possible color of the window (the
highest color-register number) is. Any other colors in the
graphics block combine with colors in the output window to
create new colors predictable only by using Boolean OR
algebra.
XOR
Performs the Boolean operation XOR between each pixel of the
covers. XOR lays down the graphics block in its original colors
wherever a background-color pixel in the output window is
covered with a graphics-block pixel Wherever a background
color m the graphics block covers an output window pixel,
XOR lays down the output window pixel color. Wherever two
non-background colors are merged, a new color that is neither
of the two merging colors results.
If you don't specify a merge choice, PUT automatically assumes

that the merge choice is XOR.
XOR has a very useful property. If you PUT the same graphics
block in the same location twice using XOR, the first time you do
it the block appears in the colors determined by the XOR merge
choice- When you use XOR the second time, the block put there
by the first XOR statement will disappear completely, and the
graphics underneath it will appear exactly as they were before
the PUT statements, effectively erasing the first block,
Applications for PSET and PRESET are obvious: You can use
them to insert graphics blocks and inverse graphics blocks
wherever you want them. Applications for AND and OR are not
quite as obvious, but you can use them with a background mask,
which you use like a painter uses a stencil. The cutouts in a paper
SECTION 2: IMAGES
166
stencil define shapes, such as block letters, that you can paint in
but you can't paint in the surrounding area because the stencil
paper covers it up; a background mask similarly defines a shape in
a window that the PUT statement using AND and OR must use
when it lays down a graphics block.
You can create a mask by creating a shape in the output win
dow using the highest possible color register and then surrounding
it by background color. When you lay a graphics block over the
mask using the AND merge option, the mask will be filled with the
colors in the graphics block, and the surrounding area won't be
affected by the graphics block. A mask works much the same way
with OR, but instead of filling the mask with the graphics block, OR
leaves it alone and fills the surrounding area with the block instead.
You can see an example of masking m the program that follows
later in this chapter.
You can see the results of ail five merge choices in Figure 6-91ater
in this chapter.
A PROGRAM EXAMPLE USING GET AND PUT

In the following program, you can see five different graphics
blocks saved in a two-dimensional array, then laid back down in
different locations in the same window using the five merge
options. The first eleven lines of the program create a window in a
screen that's four bit planes deep, then use two FOR... NEXT loops
to fill in the upper part of the window with words and background
in all the colors possible in the window. The next eight lines print
text and draw circles in the bottom half of the screen using the
highest color register (number 15, a light gray) against the
background color.
The DIM statement in the next line creates a two-dimensional
short integer array that measures 803 by 5 elements. This is to
store five blocks that each need 803 elements of array storage. The
FOR ... NEXT loop that follows cycles five times, and each time
uses the GET statement to store a block in the top section of the
screen. The following LINE statement outlines the area that the
GET statement saved so you can see where it copied graphics. A
FOR ... NEXT loop in the next line freezes the display for a short
time so you can see how it looks before the graphics blocks are
PUT back in the window.
The last five lines of the program are five different PUT state
ments that lay the five blocks down in a row on the bottom of the
screen. Each PUT statement uses a different merge choice.
167
SCREEN 1 , 320, 200 ,4,1
WINDOW 2, , , 0, 1
WIDTH }:
FDR l = 1 TD 3
FOR j = 0 TO 15
k = j + 1
IF k > 15 THEN k = 0
COLOR j , It
PRINT "Trinidad11;
NEXT j
NEXT i
LOCATE 16, 1
PRINT "and the big Mississippi and the";

PRINT "town Honolulu and the lake";
PRINT "Tlticaca."
FOR i = 35 TO 287 STEP 63

CIRCLE!i,170), 10
PAINTti ,170)
NEXT l
DIM blocfcS(802,4)
FOR i = 0 TO 4
GET(60 i,0) - {(60 i) + 59,49), blockX(O.i)
LINE(60 1,0) - ((60 i) * 59,19) , 1 , B
NEXT l
FOR t = 1 TO 5000: NEXT t
PUT(5,130), blockX(O.O), PSET

PUT(68,130), blockX(Q ,0) , PRESET
PUT(131 , 130) , blockX(0 ,0) , AND
PUT(194,130) , block2(0 ,0 ) , OR
PUT(257,130), blockX{0,0>, XDR

Notice how the different merge choices affect the five blocks laid
down across the bottom of the screen. The first block, using PSET,
is copied directly to the window, covering everything underneath
it. The second block, using PRESET, is converted to inverse colors
and laid down in the window covering everything beneath it- In
the third block, the letters and the circle act as a mask, since they
are colored with register number 15, the highest color register; the
colors m the block are copied within the characters and the circle,
but not outside them in the background color. In the fourth block,
the opposite happens. The block colors are copied in the back
ground color all around the characters and the circle, but the char
acters and circle themselves are unchanged and show through the
block. In the last block, the characters are changed to completely
new colors by XOR, depending on which color in the block
covers the character.
SECTION 2: IMAGES
168
Figure 6-9.
a aUSOS EEtEJ *
GET and PUT
statements copy blocks
from one section of the
window to another sec
tion using the five merge
choices.
You've now tried some of the more exotic Amiga BASIC

graphics commands, and have added text to your graphics
using different fonts and character colors. You've also
created interactive window graphics that respond to
changing window conditions. With the GET and PUT
statements, you've copied and pasted blocks of graphics
from one section of a window to another, and learned how
to store multiple graphics blocks in one array. This knowl
edge will come in handy when you use PUT to create ani
mation sequencesbut that's not until Section 4, Anima
tion. In the meantime, turn up your monitor speaker and
try some Amiga sounds in the section ahead.
169
SECTION
In this section, you'll Sounds

learn how to create
music and speech with
the Amiga. In Chapter
7, you'll learn the
fundamentals of elec
tronic music. In
Chapter 8, you'll learn
advanced techniques
the Deluxe
l and
learn aJ^H iBLrnusic
applications
tional hardware that
will enhance the
Amiga's sound capabil
ities. Chapter 9 will
show you how to use
Amiga BASIC to create
music, sound effects,
and speech.
CHAPTER SEVEN
AN ELECTRONIC
MUSIC PRIMER
Although most people hear electronic music all the time
on radio, television, and at the movies, if you ask them
what created the music, most of them aren't quite sure.
They see visions of giant consoles of knobs, switches, and
glowing lights, and rat's nests of patch cords that look like
the cover of Switched On Bach, or they see a rock band
with huge racks of keyboards and cables running every
where. These are visions of electronic music's sordid past.
Computers have changed electronic music for the better,
making it simpler and much more fun to create. There's no
longer any need for the massive banks of switches and
knobsthe computer can offer you the same control using
simple commands issued from the keyboard or mouse. The
cabling is much simpler because there aren't so many
components needed to create music. And if you use the
Amiga to create music, the process is very simple indeed,
because all the necessary hardware is included in the
machineall you need is the software to control it.
Since the Amiga can perform so many different audio
functions, it's a good idea to get to know about them
individuallyhow they work, and what they're supposed
to do. The aim of all this audio-technical wizardry is to
please your ears, so it's also good to know just how your
ears are tickled into hearing sounds. The more you know,
the better sounds you can make with your Amiga.
HOW YOU HEAR SOUNDS
Most people know that sound comes to your ears through the air.
After all, if you cover your ears with your hands, you can cut out a
lot of sound. It's also obvious that sound usually comes from a
variety of sources around you. In a room full of people talking, you
can usually tell which person is speaking (at least if you're close
enough). What most people don't know is how it all workswhy
some sounds are different than others, and how your ears interpret
each sound.
Sounds begin with a vibrating object like a gong, vocal cords,
or a plucked string. As the object vibrates forward, it pushes and
slightly compresses the air around it. As the object vibrates back, it
pulls back and rarefies (creates a slight vacuum in) the air. As it
continues vibrating, it creates more compressions and rarefactions
of the air. These pressure variations travel away from the object as
sound waves, as you can see in Figure 7-1. They spread through the
air much like ripples spread out from a rock thrown into a still pond,
and travel until they die out or hit another object (such as your ear).
SECTION 3: SOUNDS
174
Figure 7-1.
En the drawing at left, a

vibrating object vibrates
out and compresses the
air beside it. In the mid
dle drawing, the same
object vibrates back in,
rarefying the air beside
it. The drawing at right

shows these compres
sions and rarefactions
spreading out from the
object as sound waves.
INSIDE THE EAR

There are three parts to a human ear: the outer ear, which you
can see sticking out from the side of your head, the middle ear, and
the inner ear, tucked deep inside your skull. Figure 7-2 shows these
three parts. The flesh and folds of the outer ear gather and concen
trate sound waves and pass them on to the middle ear. Here, the
sound waves meet the eardrum, a small membrane that transmits
vibrations to three small bones (called the hammer, anvil, and stir
rup), which amplify the sound waves and pass them on to the co
chlea, a part of the inner ear.
Stirrup, Basilar membrane Figure 7-2.

Perilymph
Anvilx \ /" "
\\ An The three parts o:
Hammer.
UJ ..
the ear.
Eardrum
Cochlea
OUTER EAR MIDDLE EAR INNER EAR
An Electronic Music Primei
175
The cochlea is a cavity in the bony part of the skull that's coiled
like a snail shell. It's filled with a liquid called perilymph, and
divided along its coiled length with a very sensitive membrane
called the basilar membrane. The amplified vibrations of the ear
drum pass on to the perilymph, which makes the basilar mem
brane vibrate. Nerve endings on the basilar membrane send the
sensations of vibration on to the brain, which analyzes them so you
can hear sound.
CHARACTERISTICS OF SOUND
When your brain analyzes sound, it can discern four main
characteristics of vibration. They are frequency, amplitude, timbre,
and duration. Using these four characteristics, you can describe
any sound you hear, or use them to provide the specifications for
creating a new sound.
Frequency
Frequency is the speed of vibration. When an object vibrates
slowly, it creates a low-frequency sound; when it vibrates quickly,
it creates a high-frequency sound. The frequency of a sound
determines its pitchthe higher the sounds frequency, the higher
the pitch.
As an example of different frequencies, think of plucking the
strings on a guitar. Because the thicker strings are heavier than the
thin strings, they vibrate more slowly and therefore sound lower in
pitch than the thin strings.
Frequency is measured in hertz, abbreviated Hz, a unit that
stands for cycles (vibrations) per second. The average range of
human hearing stretches from 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz.
Amplitude
Amplitude is the strength of vibration. When an object vibrates
with strong vibrations {that is. it vibrates back and forth over a
relatively large distance), it creates a sound of strong amplitude.
When it vibrates with weaker vibrations (vibrating back and forth
over a relatively small distance), it creates a sound of weaker
amplitude. The amplitude of a sound determines its volumethe
higher the amplitude, the louder the sound. As an example of
amplitude, think of the guitar strings in the previous example. If
you pluck them hard, they vibrate violently, creating a sound of
great amplitude. If you pluck them gently, they vibrate so little you
can barely see them move, making sounds of little amplitude.
The amplitude of a sound is measured in decibels. A decibel is
the smallest change in loudness that a human ear can detect.
Increasing a sound's amplitude by ten decibels makes the sound
double in loudness to the human ear. Human hearing ranges from
one decibel (the threshold of hearing) to somewhere over 120
decibels (the threshold of pain).
SECTION 3: SOUNDS
176
Timbre
Timbre (pronounced tam'-burr) is a little more complicated than
frequency and amplitude. It is a mixture of frequencies within a
single sound. Most vibrating objects don't vibrate at just one fre
quency they vibrate at several frequencies simultaneously. The
lowest frequency is called the fundamental, and it's the fundamental
that you hear as the main frequency of the sound. The fundamen
tal sets the pitch of the sound- The higher frequencies are called
overtones, and they blend in with the fundamental frequency to
change the tonal quality of the sound.
The timbre of a sound determines its tone color. The more
overtones present in the sound, the richer its timbre; the fewer
the overtones, the thinner its timbre. Timbre isn't measured in any
unit of measurement, although it is possible to analyze the number
of overtones present in a sound (a process called Fourier analysis)
to see how many overtones are present. Instead, most people use
words like "rich," "thin," "fat," or "buzzy" to describe timbre.
A good example of timbre is the difference between a violin and
a flute playing exactly the same note. Each instrument produces
sounds with an entirely different overtone series, so each has its
own distinct timbre, and won't be mistaken for the other.
Although Fourier analysis can show the individual overtones of a
sound, the most common way to show the timbre of a sound
visually is to use a waveform. A waveform is a record of the air
pressure of a sound wave over time that shows the summation of
sound's overtones. By looking at the shape of the cycles in the
waveform, you can see differences in timbre. In Figure 7-3, you can
see three basic wave shapes: the sine wave, the square wave, and
the sawtooth wave. The sine wave sounds gentle and smooth. The
square wave is rich and full, and the sawtooth wave is quite
piercing and colorful.
Figure 7-3.
Three waveforms: a sine
wave, a square wave, and

a sawtooth wave
Sine wave
Square wave
Sawtooth wave
An Electronic Music Primer
177
Duration
Duration is used to measure the first three sound attributes:
frequency amplitude, and timbre. In its simplest use, duration
measures all three together, and so measures the length of the
entire sound from its first hearing to its last fadeout. In other cases,
duration measures each attribute individually, recording how it
changes over time. For example, a singer can hold out a note on
one pitch, but get louder and then fade away. Duration can
measure how long the amplitude increased and how long the
amplitude decreased. A trumpet player might play a long note on
the same pitch, but stick a mute in halfway through the note.
Duration could be used in this case to measure the length of the
first timbre before it was replaced by the muted timbre. If a
saxophone player squeaked at the beginning of a note, duration
could measure the time it took the squeak frequency to drop back
down to the frequency of the final note.
The graph of any of these three attributes over time defines
the envelope of that attribute. Envelopes are very important in
describing the quality of a sound. For example, a plucked harp
string has a sharp twang at the beginning that dies away as the
note lingers. Looking at the amplitude envelope of that note in
Figure 7-4 shows that the note immediately jumps to large
amplitude (loud), then slowly decreases its amplitude over time
(gets softer and fades away).
Figure 7-4.
The amplitude envelope

of a harp note.
Time
Envelopes are very important to the way we hear sounds. Any

sound is a result of the way its pitch, loudness, and timbre are
shaped over time. Changing the envelope of any one attribute
makes a distinct change in the character of the sound.
SECTION 3- SOUNDS
178
PRODUCING ELECTRONIC SOUNDS
To hear sounds from an electronic source, such as a tape deck,

synthesizer, or a computer, you need a sound system consisting of
at least two components: a speaker, and an audio amplifier to drive
the speaker. The amplifier takes a weak audio signal from an
electronic device, amplifies it, and sends the signal to the speaker,
where the speaker does the physical work of converting the
amplified audio signals into audible form. The speaker has the
difficult task of creating a huge variety of soundssounds with
many different timbres, sounds over a wide range of pitch and
loudness.
THE SPEAKER
If you look at Figure 7-5, you can see a cutaway drawing of a
speaker. The vibrating part of the speaker, the part that produces
sound waves, is the speaker cone. A speaker cone is a conical
piece of stiff paper or plastic mounted m a circular metal frame.
The outer edge of the cone is suspended in the frame by very
flexible folds of rubber or rubber-like material so the cone can move
in and out easily within the metal frame.
Figure 7-5.
Flexible fold
A cutaway view of a
speaker.
Speaker cone
To amplifier
Metal frame
Flexible fold
In a typical speaker, the center of the speaker cone is attached to

a coil of wire suspended in the magnetic field of a very power
ful magnet, which is attached to the rear of the metal frame. {This
magnet is powerful enough to erase floppy disks, so you should
always be careful not to put your disks too near the back of a
speaker.) Both ends of the coil of wire lead out of the speaker to
the amplifier.
179
When the amplifier sends an audio signal through the coil, it
creates a magnetic field in the coil that either attracts or repels the
magnetic field created by the fixed magnet. This pushes the coil
forward or backward, moving the speaker cone with it. The direc
tion and amount of the speaker-cone movement depends on the
strength of the magnetic field created by the audio signal going
through the coil. The stronger the field, the more the cone moves.
The audio signal coming from the amplifier changes the strength
of the field very rapidly, so the speaker cone vibrates quickly
enough to create sounds. As the audio signal changes in frequency,
amplitude, and overtones, the sound produced by the speaker
changes with it. A good speaker cone will accurately interpret
every nuance of change in the audio signal as a nuance in the
sound it creates.
In a good high-fidelity speaker, there are usually at least three
speaker cones, one for each of three different frequency ranges.
One speaker cone, appropriately called the woofer, produces low
sounds. The mid-range speaker cone produces mid-range frequen
cies, and the tweeter is a speaker cone that produces high pitches.
A system of filters, called the crossover network, separates the
audio signal from the amplifier into three separate signals of the
three different frequency ranges, which are sent out over separate
wires to each speaker cone. The result, if the speaker components
are of good quality, is excellent reproduction of all the frequencies in
the human hearing range.
THE AMPLIFIER
An audio signal from sources like cassette decks, turntables,
radio tuners, or the Amiga is too weak to drive a speaker by itself,
it needs amplification in order to be heard. An amplifier's job is to
take an audio signal from a weak source and boost its strength so
that it's strong enough to move the speaker cone in and out. Almost
all amplifiers have a volume knob so you can control how much the
signal is amplified; some amplifiers also have tone controls that
change the timbre of the incoming signal before it's amplified and
sent out to the speaker.
STEREO
Most people have a stereo home-audio system with two
speakers, one for the right of the listening area, the other for the
left of the listening area. These speakers convert two separate
audio signals (called the left and right channels) into two sound
sources that create the illusion of many different sources of sound
located throughout a room (a process called imaging).
SECTION 3: SOUNDS
180
To see how stereo imaging works, consider an example. A re
cording engineer records a woodwind trio spread across a stage;
the oboe on the left, the clarinet in the middle, and the bassoon
on the right. He uses two microphones to record, one for each
channel. The left microphone is close to the oboe and further from
the other instruments, and so records the left channel with a strong
oboe sound, a medium clarinet sound, and a weak bassoon sound.
The right microphone, close to the bassoon, records the right
channel with a strong bassoon sound, a medium clarinet sound,
and a weak oboe sound.
When you listen to the recording (facing the speakers with the
left-channel speaker on your left and the right-channel speaker on
your right), you hear a lot of oboe sound coming from the left
speaker and not much oboe sound coming from the right speaker,
so you perceive the oboe to be to your left. The clarinet sound
comes equally from both speakers, so you perceive the clarinet
coming from the center area between the two speakers. The
bassoon sound comes mostly from the right speaker, so you
perceive the bassoon to be on your right. Your stereo system uses
this same imaging technique to create the illusion of an entire
orchestra of instruments spread across your living room.
The Amiga has stereo outputs so you can connect it to a stereo
system, but its left and right channels are discretethat is, the left
signal goes entirely to the left speaker, and the right signal goes
entirely to the right speaker. These discrete signals don't allow
imaging, since there is no mixture of the sound coming from both
speakers. To blend the Amiga's sound signals through both left and
right channels to create imaging, you need an audio mixer,
described later in the chapter.
SYNTHESIZING MUSIC
To record music, you use microphones that turn sound waves

in the air into audio signals. When you listen to the recording, the
sound system turns audio signals back into sound waves. If you
create music by building an audio signal from scratch rather than
recording sound waves, you are synthesizing music.
Music synthesis requires more than just an amplifier and a
speaker. You need a synthesizer to build an audio signal, and a
controller like a keyboard or a sequencer, to play music on the
synthesizer. The Amiga has the hardware necessary to synthesize
sounds through its audio ports. You can attach a music keyboard
to a controller port or use the Amiga's own keyboard to play the
Amiga like a musical instrument. You can buy or write software
that creates a sequencer in RAM to play sequences of notes using
the Amiga's synthesizing capabilities.
181
SYNTHESIZERS
In concept, a synthesizer is simple. It sets the frequency, ampli
tude, and waveshape of an audio signal, and sends it as an un-
amplified audio waveform to the amplifier. The amplified waveform
is then sent to the speaker, where it is translated directly into sound
waves, audibly duplicating the original synthesized waveform. In
practice, sound synthesis isn't quite so simple. It takes a lot of work
to create an audio signal that's interesting to the human ear. The
first synthesizers to succeed were analog synthesizers, instruments
that are still popular today.
Analog synthesizers
Analog synthesizers use a series of electronic components first
to create a simple audio signal, then to twist, tickle, and torture the
signal into a much more complex and interesting form. The heart of
the analog synthesizer is the voltage-controlled oscillator, or VCO for
short. The VCO creates an audio signal from scratch in one of
several waveforms that you can choose. These waveforms are
usually quite simplesine waves, triangle waves, sawtooth waves,
square waves, and perhaps a few others.
The VCO changes pitch according to a control voltage, which
usually comes from a keyboard or a sequencer. For each different
note, the keyboard or sequencer sends a different control voltage to
change the pitch of the VCO. To make the sound more interesting,
the signal from the VCO can be passed through voltage-controlled
filters and voltage-controlled amplifiers that add attributes such as
overtones, duration, and amplitude to each note. The signal can be
enhanced even more by passing it through other synthesizer mod
ules; ring modulators, white noise generators, sample and hold
modules, high-pass filters, low-pass filters, band-pass filters, and
others. The effect of each module on the signal is different, but the
purpose of each is to change the original signal from a plain and
uninteresting sound to a rich and intriguing sound.
Digital synthesizers
The Amiga, like many other modern synthesizers, is a digital
synthesizer. Instead of producing a simple signal with an oscillator
and then enhancing it by passing it through other electronic equip
ment, a digital synthesizer creates a sound as a digital mathe
matical model, then turns the model into an audio signal that it
sends directly to the amplifier. With digital synthesizers, creating
new and unique sounds becomes as much a matter of mathematics
as it does electronics.
SECTION 3: SOUNDS
182
The Amiga makes its digital models fay creating the waveform of
a sound in its memory. To understand how it does this, think of
how a waveform depicts the quality of a sound. You read a wave
form like the one in Figure 7-6 from left to right. The waveform goes
up for higher air pressure, down for lower air pressure. This
corresponds directly with the motion of the speaker cone: Each
time the waveform goes above the horizontal center line, the
speaker cone moves out to create higher pressure. Each time the
waveform goes below the horizontal center line, the speaker cone
moves in to create lower pressure.
Figure 7-6.
A typical waveform.
As you read the waveform, you can see the entire record of the
speaker cone's motion from the beginning to the end of the sound.
The more waves there are in the waveform, the faster the cone
moves in and out. The higher and lower the waveform goes, the
more motion the cone goes through. By sending the waveform of a
sound as an amplified audio signal to a speaker, you can create that
entire sound.
To store a waveform in the Amigas memory, it has to be chopped
up into a series of numbers. A good way to think of it is to imagine
describing a waveform over the phone to another person. You can
chop the waveform up horizontally into tiny equal segments, shown
in Figure 7-7 (on the next page). By measuring the height of each
segment, you can pass the measurements on to the person at the
other end of the phone line, who can reconstruct the waveform if
you tell him the width of the segments you used.
183
Figure 7-7
A waveform chopped
into measured segments.
s
The amplitude measure A X \
ment of each segment
is read over the phone
\
HHILJllltfllll
Mdtruvr
line to another person
who reconstructs the

waveform.
The Amiga creates waveforms in the same way, storing them in

its memory as an ordered list of waveform measurements called a
waveform table. The measurements use a very small segment size
to keep the waveform accurate.
To create complex and interesting waveforms, the Amiga uses
mathematical formulas to create a waveform from scratch. These
formulas plot each point in the waveform table. Once the waveform
table is complete, it's sent to a digital-to-analog converter (usually
called a D-to-A converter) that converts the waveform's digital
measurements into an unamplified audio signal, which is then
amplified and sent to the speakers.
The Amiga has four internal audio channels, each with its own
waveform table and D-to-A converter. The outputs of these
channels are mixed in pairs and sent out through the left and right
audio ports in the back of the Amiga's console, two from the left
port and two from the right port. Each audio channel plays notes
by looping through its waveform table. You can change the pitch of
notes played by a channel by changing the rate the Amiga uses to
read through the channel's waveform table: The faster the rate, the
higher the pitch.
Although the Amiga has just four audio channels, it's not limited
to four voices of music; any single waveform table can store an in
finite number of pitches, so four waveform tables can create an
infinite number of musical voices. For example, think of the single
waveform produced by a microphone in front of a large symphony
SECTION 3: SOUNDS
184
orchestra. That waveform has sound information for over a hundred
instruments simultaneously playing different pitches. If you play the
waveform back over a speaker, you can hear all the different pitches
played in the orchestra. A waveform table containing that same
orchestra] waveform and stored in one of the Amiga's internal audio
channels would create the same number of pitches when you
played it back.
In practice, getting more than four independent musical voices
on the Amiga at once is a complicated process. Using mathe
matical synthesis to create a multi-pitch waveform table on one
audio channel isn't as easy as creating a single-pitch waveform
table. Once you create the mathematical model of a multi-pitch
waveform table, the pitches in the waveform table are locked
together. When the audio channel speeds up or slows down its
playback rate to raise or lower the pitch, all the pitches are raised
or lowered together, so they aren't actually independent musical
voices. To change pitches independently within a multi-pitch audio
channel, the Amiga has to calculate a new waveform table for each
individual pitch change. This requires some tricky programming,
but it's not impossible, so look for software that can play eight or
even sixteen independent voices of music on the Amiga.
When you use your Amiga as a synthesizer, you don't have to
mathematically calculate your own waveform tables (although you
can, if you're an advanced programmer). Instead, you can use a
variety of methods offered by different Amiga synthesizer pro
grams. For example, some music programs use on-screen controls
that look very much like the controls of an analog synthesizer. Other
programs may use menus to change various aspects of sound, or
they may let you draw waveforms directly on the screen. No matter
what controls the program provides, they all change the mathe
matical formulas that create the waveform table inside the Amiga.
Sampled sounds
The Amiga and some other digital synthesizers can create
sounds without synthesizing them. Instead, they record the sounds
from the outside world, storing them in a waveform table as a
series of waveform measurements. These recorded sounds are
called sampled soundsthe measurement of each segment of the
waveform is called a sample, and the process of making those
measurements and storing the waveform as a series of numbers is
called sampling.
To create a sampled sound, you need to add a microphone and a
sampler to the Amiga. When the microphone picks up a sound, it
185
sends the waveform of the sound as an unamplified audio signal to
the sampler. The sampler chops the waveform up into approxi
mately 20.000 segments per second (the number of samples varies
with the sampling rate), takes a reading of the amplitude of each
segment, and sends each sample to the Amiga in the order it was
taken. This stream of samples is stored in the Amiga's memory as a
waveform table, and can be played back through an audio channel's
D-to-A converter just as a synthesized waveform is played back.
Sampled sounds are usually very rich, since they're recorded
directly from a very complex acoustic source. They do have a
drawback, though; they need a lot of RAM for storage, because
each individual sample is stored in memory, unlike a synthesized
waveform, which is stored as a formula. When you consider that
each sample of a sound needs one byte to store it in memory, and
that a sampler samples 20,000 segments per second, a sampled
sound of two seconds needs 40,000 bytes. This adds up quickly if
you use many sampled sounds at once in the Amiga. Synthesized
sounds, on the other hand, require a very small amount of memory.
Instead of storing the entire waveform table in memory as a series
of individual numbers, the Amiga stores only the mathematical
formula needed to create a synthesized sound. When you want to
play a synthesized sound, the Amiga recalls the formula and
creates the waveform from it.
Sampled sounds are inflexible if played back normally; the wave
form plays back at the same pitch, loudness, timbre, and length as
the original soundit's just a digitized recording of the sound.
Fortunately, the Amiga can alter the playback of a sampled sound
to use it musically. By increasing and decreasing the values of the
samples, it can change the loudness of the sound. By sending the
samples to the D-to-A converter at a slower or faster rate, it can
change the frequency of the sound.
To change the duration of the sampled sound, the Amiga must
repeat part of it over and over. It's important that the repeated
section sound smooth, so somebody has to listen to the sound
produced by a sampled-sound waveform to find the best section to
repeat (called the sustain loop). If the sustain loop is too near the
beginning of the waveform, you might hear the attack of the sound
over and over againthe "pick" of a guitar string or the biurble of
a trumpet notea very distracting effect. If the sustain loop is set
too near the end of the waveform, the sound may have died away to
nothing, so repeating it does no good.
Obviously, setting a sustain loop is a matter of judgment. The
sampled sounds you get with a program like Deluxe Music have
SECTION 3: SOUNDS
186
the sustain loop already picked out and recorded with the sound on
disk. To create your own sampled sounds, you'll need extra
software to go with the sampler and the microphone you use to
capture the sampled sounds. Once you have the sounds, you'll have
to use the software to look at their waveforms on the screen and
adjust the beginning and end of the sustain loop until you find the
best sound.
SEQUENCERS
A musical sequencer is a device that controls and plays a
musical instrument. For example, a player piano uses a roll of paper
containing holes to play the piano keys. Each hole on the roll cor
responds to one key pressed on the piano keyboard. An electronic
music sequencer works on similar principles; it stores notes elec
tronically and uses them to play music on a synthesizer. Early
sequencers were simple affairselectromechanical devices that
stored a sequence of pitches and nothing more. They played
perhaps 20 to 50 pitches on the synthesizer, all the same duration,
and then repeated them over and over again until the sequencer
was stopped.
Today's sequencers are much different. They use computers, and
they're no longer restricted to a small set of pitches. They can store
hundreds of thousands of pitches. They can also control durations
of notes and regulate other musical factors such as volume,
instrumentation, and timbre.
Sequencer programs on the Amiga can be very sophisticated.
You can enter notes into them using a traditional music staff or
a notation system designed especially for the program. The se
quencer software stores the notes as a sequence of events with
precise timing. The events can be items like the start of a note, the
end of a note, an instrument change, a volume change, and other
musical factors. When the sequencer plays back its score, it sends
these events to the Amiga's built-in synthesizer as control signals.
These control signals act like a phantom musician, starting and
stopping notes, and twiddling synthesizer "dials" to change the
tonal quality of the sounds.
The advantage of using a sequencer over playing a keyboard is
that the sequencer can perform music that no one human musician
could create. It can control more voices, play faster and more
complex music, and transpose to any key or change to any tempo
with a single command. The disadvantage is that no sequencer is
spontaneous. It has to be programmed beforehand, and can't react
to the mood around it, changing its performance to respond to
the audience.
187
SYNTHESIZING SPEECH
If you listen closely to yourself speaking, you can hear the small
elements of speechchanges in timbre when you change vowels
and consonants, and changes in pitch and volume as you speak
with inflection, accenting different syllables. By synthesizing a
waveform that includes all these quick and very subtle changes in
timbre, pitch, and volume, it's possible to make a synthesizer
speak.
The Amiga has a device in its system software that makes
speech synthesis easy. It takes text m strings of letters from
sources such as the keyboard or memory, and turns them into
waveforms that create speech instead of music when they're
converted into sound on an audio channel. The text to be
translated into speech is spelled out phonetically, using a special
computer phonetic spelling; that is, using a spelling like
"LAH5NCHWAE2GIN" for a word like "lunchwagon." (The Amiga's
phonetic spellings are discussed in Chapter 9, along with other
details of speech synthesis.)
Phonetic spelling gives you detailed control of word pronuncia
tion and syllable inflection, but it takes some time to translate
normal English words into the correct phonetic spelling. To make
things easier, the Amiga's system software also contains devices
that translate strings of English words into strings of phonetic
spellings to be turned into synthesized speech. When you consider
how many different pronunciations exist for some letters in English
(take the "o" in "women" for example), it's quite a feat to decide
which pronunciation should be used for a letter. The translation
devices in the Amiga's system software do it quite well.
The speech device can also alter the quality of the Amiga's
speaking voice. It can speak in a high or low voice to sound male
or female, and it can use different pitches to sing lyrics to a song. It
can speak with a lot of inflection or in a monotone. It can also
change the volume and the speed of the speech.
RECORDING ELECTRONIC MUSIC
Playing music on the Amiga is great fun, but most people won't
get a chance to hear your creations unless you drag your Amiga
out in the streets or you invite large numbers of people over to
stand in your computer room. The best solution is to record your
music on tape. Anyone with a sound system is likely to own a
cassette player, so if you gave them a tape they can play back your
SECTION 3: SOUNDS
188
music. You can copy the tape and send it off to faraway relatives
and recording executives, and you can play it back to yourself in
your car tape deck as you drive.
Recording on tape has additional advantages: You can mix in
sounds from sources outside your Amiga. For example, if you enter
the accompaniment to "Ode to the Wombat" on the Amiga, you
can play it back while singing the words into a microphone, and
record the whole performance for posterity. You can also blend the
left and right audio channels of the Amiga together to image their
sounds, and use some tricks to record your Amiga playing with
your Amiga. All you need is the right equipment.
TAPE RECORDERS
The most important piece of equipment you'll need is a tape
recorder. The most common type is the cassette recorder, but you
can also use a reel-to-reel recorder or a videocassette recorder (hi-fi
VCRs have impressive audio recording capabilities}. Use a cassette
recorder if you want a tape medium that's easy to use and easy for
most people to play back. Consider a reel-to-reel recorder if you
plan to edit your recordingsreel-to-ree! recordings are much
easier to edit than cassette or video tapes.
Most tape recorders are stereo recorders: They use two discrete
tracks on the tape. Each track stores a different audio signal that
plays back to create the two signals needed for stereo sound
reproduction. Some tape recorders (usually reel-to-reel recorders)
have more than two tracks, ranging from 4 to 32 discrete tracks.
Each individual track can record a separate signal. Multi-track
recorders (the type used in recording studios) are used to record
one musical line per track so the volume and tonal quality of each
line can be adjusted individually when you play it back. Recording
one track at a time allows a single musician to create a tape of
himself playing different instruments simultaneously, so he ends up
performing an entire song by himself.
MIXERS
To feed many different audio signals into a tape recorder, you
need a mixer. Mixers can adjust the strength of each individual
audio signal to give you a good balance between them. For ex
ample, if you plan to record using a microphone and your Amiga,
you may find the microphone signal to be weaker than the signal
from the Amiga. A mixer will adjust for the differences in signal
strengths and can also help to create imaging effects in a stereo
recording. A mixer can take the two discrete sounds coming from
the left and right audio jacks of the Amiga and blend them across
the left and right channels of the recorder. A small knob called a
pan pot lets you position the apparent location of the sounds from
the Amiga-
189
SIMPLE RESULTS
If you just want to create a simple recording of your Amiga, you
don't need fancy equipment. One cassette recorder with two line-
level input jacks will work. (A line-ievel signal is an unamplified
audio signal.) The audio jacks on the back of the Amiga produce a
line-ievel output, which can be directly connected to the input
jacks of a cassette deck using two audio cables. All you need to do
is put a cassette in the recorder and start recording.
MIDI
Although the Amiga by itself is capable of impressive music, it

can be turned into a much more powerful system by connecting
it to outside synthesizers using MIDI. MIDI stands for Musical
Instrument Digital Interface. It's not a piece of equipment itself; it's
a standard that regulates the type of cables and the information
format that are used to send musical information back and forth
between synthesizers, or between synthesizers and a computer.
MIDI evolved a few years ago as a way to simplify synthesizer
connections. You probably have memories of a rock concert where
the keyboard player would jump back and forth between racks of
synthesizers to play a riff on the one synthesizer that had just the
sound he wanted. When synthesizers are connected together with
MIDI cables, a musician can use the keyboard of any connected
synthesizer to play the sounds of any other connected synthesizer.
It's possible for a musician to set up one synthesizer as the master
synthesizer, using its keyboard to play the sounds of the other
synthesizers as well as its own sounds. The musician can choose
which synthesizer (or synthesizers) he wants to play with the
master keyboard, and so saves himself a lot of jumping around.
MIDI is flexible enough to allow many other possibilities. For
example, you can include a computer in the MIDI network. Since
MIDI carries information for all the keystrokes, pitch wheel bends,
instrument changes, and other actions that a performer might take
as he plays, the computer can create a record of all those activities,
recording not sounds, but performance events. It can re-create the
music later by sending the recorded MIDI events back out over the
SECTION 3; SOUNDS
190
MIDI connection to attached synthesizers. The computer used in
this type of arrangement is called a MIDI recorder, and is very
useful, since the MIDI events stored in memory are easy to modify.
THE MIDI PHYSICAL STANDARD

MIDI has become a music industry standard. Almost all syn
thesizer manufacturers include at least one MIDI port on their
synthesizers so you can connect them to other MIDI-equipped
machines. Standardization makes it simple to connect MIDI equip
ment togetheryou use a MIDI cable with 5-pin DIN plugs (a
standard type of audio plug) on each end, and plug one end of the
cable into the MIDI port on one machine and the other into the MIDI
port on a second machine.
There are three different kinds of MIDI ports used on MIDI equip
ment: MIDI In, MIDI Out, and MIDI Thru. The MIDI In port receives
signals from another MIDI device. The MIDI Out port sends out
signals from that device to another MIDI device. MIDI Out usually
just sends signals that originate from that device (like keystrokes,
etc.), but on some equipment it can also mix in the signals the
device receives through the MIDI In port, and pass both signals
through the MIDI Out port. The MIDI Thru port simply passes on
signals that come in through the MIDI In port without changing
them.
You can use the three types of MIDI ports to connect MIDI equip
ment in different configurations. For example, you can connect a
computer to a synthesizer by connecting the computer's MIDI Out
port to the synthesizer's MIDI In port, and by connecting the com
puter's MIDI In port to the synthesizer's MIDI Out port. Using this
configuration, the computer can read all the MIDI signals that the
synthesizer sends, and the synthesizer can read all the MIDI signals
that the computer sends.
If you have a computer and several synthesizers, you can set up
the computer as a controller for the synthesizers. To do this, you
connect the computer's MIDI Out port to the MIDI In port of the first
synthesizer. Next, connect the first synthesizer's MIDI Thru port to
the MIDI In port of the second synthesizer, then connect the second
synthesizers MIDI Thru port to the MIDI In port of the third
synthesizer. You can also connect additional synthesizers by con
necting each new synthesizer's MIDI In port with the MIDI Thru
port of the last connected synthesizer. With this configuration, each
synthesizer is only capable of receiving (via its MIDI In port) MIDI
messages sent out by the computer, or passing along MIDI mes
sages to the next synthesizer (via its MIDI Thru port). An example
of this configuration is shown in Figure 7-8 (on the next page).
191
Figure 7-8.
Connecting a computer MTTJ MTrt Min UXDI MtDi UQ

la TWv O* In Tin Ou
to MIDI devices to use it

as a controller.
1st synthesizer 2nd synthesizer
DDDDaDDCDDOn
nonaoaaaaoaa
n n a a n r; d n n a
oonaanacnoac
Another configuration that allows each MIDI device to exchange

information with any other MIDI device is a MIDI "ring," shown in
Figure 7-9. To create a ring, all the MIDI devices must be equipped
to mix the MIDI In signals they receive with the signals they create,
and pass both signals out through the MIDI Out port. This
configuration allows any device in the ring to exchange MIDI
messages with any other device m the ring.
Figure 7-9.
Creating a MIDI ring to

allow MIDI message
interchange between
devices.
To use the Amiga as a MIDI machine, you need to add a MIDI

adaptor to the serial port on the back of the Amiga's console. The
MIDI adaptor has the three different MIDI ports, and makes the
Amiga serial signal compatible with the MIDI standard signal.
SECTION 3: SOUNDS
192
MIDI MESSAGES
The signals that pass from machine to machine over the MIDI
cables are similar to the signals that pass from computer to com
puter when the computers are connected together with a modem.
Modem communication normally uses a type of code called ASCII
(American Standard Code for Information Interchange) that uses a
set of code numbers to represent letters of the alphabet, numerals,
punctuation marks, as well as computer information such as
carriage returns, line feeds, and other control characters.
MIDI also uses a set of code numbers, but instead of represent
ing letters and numbers, each one stands for different occurrences
on a synthesizer. These MIDI code numbers are strung together in
groups called messages. Typical MIDI messages communicate
events like note-on (that a keyboard key was pressed, what pitch it
was, and how hard the key was pressed), note-off (that a key was
released and what key it was), and that a pitch wheel was moved
(how far the pitch wheel, a device that bends pitch up or down,
was moved).
MIDI messages are sent over the cables in 16 different software-
controlled channels. Each channel carries messages for one MIDI
machine (you specify which machine uses which channel), so it's
possible to connect 16 different MIDI machines together on the
same MIDI network with each machine sending and receiving MIDI
messages on its own channel. Each MIDI channel can transmit all
the events happening on its synthesizer, so each channel can trans
mit a full performancechords, fancy fingerwork, instrument
changes, and all. A central computer controlling external syn
thesizers can use the separate channels to send messages to and
record events from individual synthesizers.
Now you know how sound is created, how you hear it,
and how it can be electronically produced. You've learned
how sound synthesis works, and how the Amiga can syn
thesize its own sounds and speech and re-create sam
pled sounds. You've also been introduced to MIDI, and
learned how to attach external synthesizers to the Amiga.
With the information you gained in this chapter, you're now
well equipped to go on to the next two sound chapters and
start making your own sounds, music, and computer-
generated speech.
193
CHAPTER EIGHT
AMIGA MUSIC
TOOLS
Today's equivalent of Johann Sebastian Bach ruining his
eyesight by poring over scores in candlelight is the modern
musician staring at his computer monitor in the wee hours
of the morning. Although the tools have changed, composi
tion is still a combination of inspiration, structuring,
recording, and struggling to bring the music to perfor
mance. The Amiga can't help you with the inspiration and
creative process, but it can relieve a lot of the drudgery
involved in writing your music and getting it played. In
this chapter, you'll learn some Amiga music techniques
that will enable you to spend more time listening to your
music and less time staring at your monitor.
A wide variety of music programs has been written for
the Amiga. Some programs record the notes of your music
in the Amiga's memory and play them back at your re
quest; others let you play on an attached keyboard or on
the Amiga's keyboard, using the Amiga as a musical instru
ment. There are also programs that let you create and mod
ify your own Amiga synthesized instruments. The program
featured in this chapter, Electronic Arts' Deluxe Music,
concentrates on storing notes and playing them back.
Deluxe Music lets you enter scores with traditional music
notation and play back your scores using the Amiga's
built-in synthesizer or an attached MIDI synthesizer.
This chapter teaches you advanced Deluxe Music tech
niques. You'll learn special methods for entering tempo
and instrument changes, using 64th notes, and working
with MIDI instruments. You'll also find some tips and hints
that make score entry easy. Later sections in the chapter
show you how to record your musical creations on tape,
and take you on a tour through other music software and
hardware available for the Amiga.
MASTERING DELUXE MUSIC
Deluxe Music is a sophisticated program that you can use to

enter, edit, play back, and print music. It uses traditional music
notationstaffs with notesto display musical scores, but offers
a nontraditional note-entry method that makes it quite easy to
enter musical scores. You can either place notes of different
durations directly on the staff using the mouse, or, if you're more
familiar with a music keyboard, you can enter pitches by clicking
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the mouse pointer on the keys of a music keyboard Deluxe Music
displays on the bottom of the screen. If you have a MIDI keyboard
connected to the Amiga, you can also enter pitches by pressing its
keyboard keys.
Deluxe Music's score-entry system is quite powerful- It provides
up to eight staffs of music on the screen at one time, and allows
you to choose treble, bass, alto, or tenor clefs for each of the staffs.
You can enter notes and rests that range from a whole note to a
32nd note, dot any note, and use the notes to create triplets or
quintuplets if you like. You can tie and slur groups of notes; put in
crescendos, diminuendos, and dynamic markings ranging from ppp
(very soft) to iff (very loud); and change time and key signatures
within the score-
Deluxe Music has powerful editing features that let you cut,
copy, and paste music much like a word processor works with text.
You can transpose groups of notes up and down in pitch. Deluxe
Music's features let you make the score more visually appealing,
both on the screen and on the printed copy. You can set the
direction of note stems and beam groups of 8th, 16th, and 32nd
notes together for clarity. (Beaming individual notes together, as
shown in Figure 8-1 on page 199, makes them easier for a musician
to read.) You can reposition the notes, rests, and staffs for maxi
mum clarity, and add text to the score for lyrics, tempo markings,
or directions to musicians. Deluxe Music has a special built-in
music font that contains music symbols like violin up and down
bow markings, trill markings, and other characters useful in a
music score. When the score looks just the way you want it, you
can print it out on an attached printer.
Deluxe Music plays back your scores using sampled sound
instruments that it loads from disk into the Amiga's memory. Once
the instruments are in memory, Deluxe Music plays them using the
Amiga's four internal audio channels. You can orchestrate your
score by making instrument changes at different locations in the
score. Using only the Amiga's four audio channels limits Deluxe
Music to a maximum of four notes played at once, but you can add
extra voices by attaching an external MIDI synthesizer. Deluxe
Music will use the external synthesizer's instruments in addition to
the Amiga's instruments (a very handy feature, considering that
Deluxe Music lets you enter a large number of simultaneous notes
on up to eight staffs).
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STRETCHING DELUXE MUSIC'S CAPABILITIES
Many people use Deluxe Music to enter scores directly from
sheet music, copying the music note by note so they can hear the
Amiga play it back. It's a simple task to enter just the notes and
rests you see on the page. Unfortunately, music entered like this
often sounds mechanical or bland. Notes and rests are merely the
framework of musicthe real soul and expression come from the
musician's flexibility and spontaneity while playing each of those
notes back.
Deluxe Music offers several features that help to give your scores
style in playback: You can use crescendo and diminuendo along
with dynamic markings to make your music rise and fall expres
sively in volume. You can slur groups of notes together so they play
smoothly from note to note, or you can make notes staccato so
each one jumps out at you as an individual note. These features
are available on a note-by-note basis: You can start the effect at
any note in the score and end it on any other note in the score.
Deluxe Music has other features to add pizzazz to your playing
styie. For example, you can start playing a voice in the score using
one instrument and then change to another instrument to give it a
different timbresudden timbre changes can really perk up a
listener's ears. You can also change the tempo of the score playback
in the middle of the score; suddenly speeding up or slowing down
playback can also have a dramatic impact on a listener. Although
these two playing-style features are very useful, Deluxe Music
doesn't let you apply them on a note-by-note basis. You can only
start them at the beginning or end of a measure; you can't change
tempo or instruments in the middle of a measure.
Most music uses measures only as a timing reference, so the bar
lines in a score don't always fall at the precise point where you
want to change an instrument or the tempo. In fact, if you want to
use accelerando (where the tempo steadily increases over a group
of notes) or ritardando (where the tempo steadily decreases over a
group of notes), Deluxe Music's ability to jump to a new tempo at
every bar line won't give you the effect you want if you use ordinary
measures.
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Fortunately Deluxe Music lets you create measures of almost
any size, so you can get around the measure limitations of tempo
and instrument changes to stretch Deluxe Musics capabilities. By
using some of the Measures menu commands like Insert Measure, Split
Measure, and Join Measure, and then setting a different time signa
ture for each measure, you can rearrange the bar lines in a score to
fall exactly where you want them to fall for changes. The next
section shows you how to take advantage of this feature.
Changing Tempos: Accelerandos and Ritardandos
Figure 8-1.
An example of ntardando
in two measures of
music.
Figure 8-1 shows the last two measures of a piece of music. To

make the ending sound substantial, there is a ritardando (marked
by the "rit" sign and a dotted line) that slows down the last eight
16th notes going into the final whole note. To enter this short
phrase with the ritardando in Deluxe Music, follow these
instructions:
1. Use the New Score command from the File menu to create a
new score.
2. Use the Set Time Signature... command from the Measures

menu to make sure the time signature of the score is set to
4/4 time.
3. Enter the notes as you see them in Figure 8-1: sixteen 16th
notes in the first measure and a whole note in the second
(last) measure.
4. Choose Score Setup from the Window menu and make sure the
Beats per Min slider is set to 90.
5. Try playing the score. It should play back at 90 beats per

minute with no ritardando.
6. Use the editing arrow to put a note-entry cursor (a blinking

vertical line) between the eighth and ninth 16th notes of the
first measure.
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7. Use the Split Measure command from the Measures menu to
insert a new bar line at the location of the note-entry cursor,
splitting the first measure into two new measures, each with
eight 16th notes.
8. Use the editing arrow and the Split Measure command to split
the second new measure into four measures, each measure
with two 16th notes.
You should now have six measures in the score: the first measure
with eight 16th notes, measures two through five with two 16th
notes, and measure six with a whole note. To see all six measures
at once, use the editing arrow to drag the right boundary of each
measure to the left until all measures are visible on the screen.
If you play the score now, you'll hear the 16th notes play back
with long pauses where you inserted the new bar lines. This
happens because the measures are all 4/4 measures, and aren't
filled up. To tighten the rhythmic slack, you must change the time
signatures of the new measures:
1. Change the first measure to 2/4 time by clicking in the

measure with the editing arrow, then using the Set Time
Signature... command in the Measures menu to change the
time signature to 2/4.
Deluxe Music automatically changes the measure you click
m and all the measures after it to the new time signature, so
when you changed the first measure, all the following mea
sures also changed to 2/4 time. However, you want to use 2/4
time for the first measure only, so you'll have to change the
time again for the following measures.
2. Change the second, third, fourth, and fifth measures to 1/8

time by clicking in the second measure with the editing
arrow and using the Set Time Signature... command again.
3. Use the same method to set the sixth measures time signa
ture back to 4/4. Now each measure's time signature is set so
the measure's contents fill it up completely.
If you play back the score now, it sounds just like it did when you
first entered it. If it seems like you just did a lot of work for nothing,
keep in mind that you now have a lot of handy bar lines sprinkled
through the notes, so you're ready to add a ritardando:
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200
1. Play back the score at different tempos by moving the Beats
per Min slider in the Score Setup window to find a slow tempo
that you want the ritardando to reach by the last measure.
For this example, 90 beats per minute works well for the
initial tempo, slowing down to 56 beats per minute by the
final whole note.
2. Set the tempo in the first measure to 90 beats per minute by

selecting the first measure, making sure the Beats per Min
slider in the Score Setup window is set to 90, and then using
the Set Tempo command in the Measures menu. The tempo
marking will appear at the beginning of the measure.
3. Set the tempo in the last measure to 56 beats per minute by

selecting the last measure, setting the slider to 56 in the Score
Setup window, and then using the Set Tempo command.
4. To create a ritardando, change the tempos of the four middle

measures in increments that go from 90 to 56. Values of 82,
74, 67, and 61 work well. The measure tempos in the final
score should read: 90, 82, 74, 67, 61, and 56.
The final score should look like Figure 8-2. If you play back the
score now, you'll hear the ritardando as the tempo gets progres
sively slower toward the end of the score.
Figure 8-2.
Split measuies and

-: 12
fl9
-= 74
U -= 67
H
-: t
fit changing tempos pro
duce a ritardando in
Deluxe Music.
fates it sees* Siagle Chords JAdvancell Insert Rest j
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If you use this method with two or more staffs, you should note
that whenever you split a measure in one staff. Deluxe Music splits
the corresponding measures in any other staffs of your score. If you
split the third measure of the first staff, for example, the third
measure in the other staffs will be split as well. To compensate for
this, you'll have to break up the notes in the other staffs to match
the measures you create for your ritardando. As an example, if you
had a second staff accompanying the music in the last example,
and the second staff had a whole note in the first measure, you'd
have to break up the whole note into a single half note and four
eighth notes to fit in the new measures, then tie them together to
make them sound like one note.
Fast Instrument Changes

If you use Deluxe Music with just the Amiga's internal voices,
you're limited to four different instruments piaying at a time. While
you can get a lot of color with four instruments, there are times
when it would be nice to have even more instruments. You can
create the illusion of more than four voices playing at a time if you
set up more than four voices in the score and switch quickly back
and forth between them.
As an example, think of a rhythm section in a band that includes
a bass guitar, a snare drum, a high-hat cymbal, and a bass drum.
When they play music together, the bass guitar plays the down
beats while the percussion instruments alternate to fill in the back
beats. If you enter a score like this in Deluxe Music where none of
these instruments play together at the same time, then they will
use only one of the Amiga's internal voices. This effectively gives
you four instruments for the price of one voice. In Figure 8-3, you
can see a rhythmic pattern that has been divided between five
different instruments this way.
Figure 8-3. Snare Drum
A rhythmic pattern is di
i h.
vided between many Bass Drum
alternating instruments.
Cymbal
Clave
Tom Drum
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202
To try the two measures in Figure 8-3 in a Deluxe Music score,
follow these instructions:
1. Create a new score. Open the Score Setup window and add
three staffs to the score. This will give you a total of five
staffs for the five different instruments in the music. Set the
score to C major in 4/4 time.
2. Load from disk the instruments for the score. You need five
instruments: a bass drum, a snare drum, a cymbal, a clave,
and a torn drum. {If you don't have these instruments, you
can approximate with five other instruments you think might
sound similar.) To load them, choose the Load Instrument...
command from the Sounds menu five times, selecting a dif
ferent instrument each time so the five instruments appear at
the top of the Sounds menu.
3. To assign the snare drum to the first staff, select the first
measure of the staff, choose the snare drum from the Sounds
menu, then choose Set Instrument from the Measures menu. The
name of the instrument should appear just above the begin
ning of the first measure.
4. Use the same method to assign the bass drum to the first
measure of the second staff, the cymbal to the first measure
of the third staff, the clave to the first measure of the fourth
staff, and the torn drum to the first measure of the fifth staff,
5. To enter the snare drum notes, select the first measure of the
snare drum staff, then enter all the snare drum notes, filling
in with rests where there are notes in the music that will be
played by other instruments.
6. Use the same technique to enter bass drum, cymbal, clave,

and torn drum notes in their respective staffs.
When you play back your score, you should hear a full rhythm
section that uses only one Amiga voice for each note. If you want
to add more voices to the score, you can add three more staffs and
enter a part using a different instrument in each of the staffs. For
example, you could have a lead guitar line in the sixth staff, a sax
line in the seventh staff, and a piano line in the eighth staff.
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As you enter notes for these new voices (or for that matter any
score with four voices), be careful where you use chords. You can
use up the Amiga's voices quickly, and this may leave some notes
unplayed. For example, if you put a three-note chord in the piano
voice at the same moment that the other three voices are playing
notes, you have a total of six simultaneous notes- Since Deluxe
Music can play only four of those notes on the Amiga, two of the
notes won't be played.
To make sure important instruments are played in case of too
many simultaneous notes in a score, you can use a louder dynamic
marking for the staff you want to be heard. Deluxe Music will
always play the notes in a staff set with a higher dynamic before it
plays notes in a staff set to a lower dynamic. For example, if you
have five different staffs playing notes at the same time, and the
staffs are set at pp, mp, mf, f, and ff, then Deluxe Music will play
only the notes on the four loudest staffs; it won't play the notes in
the staff set at pp. By setting one staff slightly louder than the
others, at f, for instance, while all the others are set at mf, you can
ensure that staff will always be heard, even if it isn't significantly
louder than the other staffs.
Handling 64th notes

Deluxe Music gives you a wide range of note lengths: You have
six basic notes that you can combine with dots and triplet and
quintuplet markings to come up with a total of 36 different notes.
(Of course, some of these, like quintuplet dotted half notes, are just
a wee bit esoteric.) With all these available notes, it is still possible
to exceed Deluxe Music's note values: One of these days you'll be
copying a score into Deluxe Music, and 145 measures into the score
you'll come to a screeching halt at a quick run of 64th notes. Then
what will you do?
There is a simple solution. It centers around the fact that note
lengths are purely relative; they have no fixed duration. For
example, if you enter a score with quarter notes and eighth notes
and play the score back at a tempo of 60 beats per minute, the
quarter notes will each last exactly one second, and the eighth
notes will each last exactly one half second. If you change the
tempo to 120 beats per minute, though, each quarter note will last
exactly one half second, and each eighth note will last exactly one
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204
fourth second. The note durations are entirely flexible, and depend
on the tempo at which you play the music. The relative lengths of
the notes are fixed, however: A quarter note is always twice as
long as an eight note, a half note is always twice as long as a
quarter note, and so on.
As you enter music using different note lengths, you aren't
actually entering a series of time durations, you're entering a series
of relative lengthsthis note is twice as long as this one, this note
is a third as long as this one-and so on throughout the whole
score. It doesn't actually matter what notes you use, the only thing
that matters is how long the notes are in relation to each other.
When you want to copy a run of 64th notes from printed music,
you won't be able to find notes in Deluxe Musics note palette that
are half as long as the 32nd notes in the score. You can make the
proportions work out, however, by making all the other notes in the
score twice as long and then entering the run as 32nd notes. Try
this example:
1. Create a new score and set it to 6/8 time in C major.
2. Enter the notes of the music in Figure 8-4 until you reach the
64th notes at the end of the second measure.
Figure 8-4.
Music with a run of

64th notes.
To accommodate the 64th notes, you must double the length

of all the other notes in the score. Choose Select All from the
Edit menu to select the entire score. Choose Double Time from
the Notes menu. This doubles the length of all the notes in
the score (eighth notes become quarter notes, and so forth),
but the notes in the last half of each measure are shaded, be
cause the Double Time command has no effect on the length of
the measures themselves. Deluxe Music shades these notes
to indicate that they no longer fit within the time signature in
effect for that measure.
Amiga Music Tools
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4. To accommodate the new note lengths, you'll have to double
the time signature of the measures. Select the first measure
of the score, then reset the time signature to 6/4 time using
the Set Time Signature... command in the Measures menu.
5. Enter the 64th notes as 32nd notes at the end of the last
measure. If you play back the score now, all the notes will
have the same relative length to each other, but the note
values themselves have been doubled, so the playback tempo
is half as fast as it was previously.
6. Double the playback tempo of the score by choosing Score

Setup from the Window menu and using the Beats per Min slider
to double the beats per minute of the current tempo setting.
When you're finished, you can apply the new tempo to the
first measure of the score by selecting the measure and
choosing Set Tempo from the Measures menu.
Now when you play back the score, it sounds just like it would
if you had entered it the way it was wiitten and played it at the
original tempo. You have entered the score using 32nd notes to
produce the rhythm that was originally written in 64th notes.
If you go on to enter more notes in a score in which you've
doubled the tempo, be sure to double all the note and rest lengths
as you enter them from the printed score. As a shortcut, you can
enter the notes and rests as they are written, then select them and
double them with the Double Time command.
Whenever you use this method while entering scores, be sure to
double the time signature of all the measures in the score. If you
have time-signature changes within the score, doubling just the
first time signature won't affect the measures with the time-
signature changes, so you have to double each changed measure
individually. To double a time signature, it's easiest just to halve the
number at the bottom of the time signature. For example, 4/4 time
doubled is 4/2, 3/8 doubled is 3/4. If you can't halve the bottom
number, then you can double the top number. For example, 3/1
doubled is 6/1.
USING DELUXE MUSIC WITH MIDI

One handy feature of Deluxe Music is that you can use it with
an external MIDI synthesizer to expand the number of instruments
that can play at one time in your scores. To set up a score to play
using a MIDI synthesizer, you use the Set Instrument command in the
Measures menu very much like you would to set an Amiga
instrument.
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To use one or several MIDI synthesizers with Deluxe Music,
you must first connect them to the Amiga with a MIDI adaptor.
Connect the first (or only) synthesizer by running a MIDI cable from
its MIDI Out port to the MIDI adaptor's MIDI In port, and running
another cable from the adaptor's MIDI Out port to the synthesizer's
MIDI In port. To connect additional synthesizers, run a cable from
the first synthesizer's MIDI Thru port to the second synthesizer's
MIDI In port, another cable from the second synthesizers MIDI Thru
port to the third synthesizer's MIDI In port, and so on until you have
all the synthesizers connected. Examples of these connections,
along with a more detailed explanation of MIDI, can be found at the
end of Chapter 7.
You must set up each synthesizer so it receives MIDI messages
on its own MIDI channel (unless you use just one synthesizer). You'll
have to do some reading through the synthesizers' users manuals
to see how to set the incoming MIDI channel. If you can't set a
synthesizer's incoming MIDI channel, chances are the synthesizer
receives messages on MIDI channel 1.
Once you have the connections made, you can turn on the
synthesizers and use them with Deluxe Music. If you want to play
part of the score through the synthesizer, first set up MIDI using
commands in the Sounds menu:
1. Choose the MIDI Active command to load the MIDI driver from
the Deluxe Music disk into the Amiga's memory.
2. Use the MIDI Channel,.. command to choose any one of the

16 MIDI channels that you want to use. Since you have the
connected synthesizers all set to different channels, you can
pick which synthesizer you want to play by choosing its
channel.
3. Choose the MIDI Setup... command to open a requester where

you can choose a preset number. Presets on a synthesizer are
the different built-in instrumental sounds the synthesizer can
play. You've probably played with an electric organ where you
could push buttons to get "Trumpet," "Flute," and other
soundsthese are examples of presets. MIDI synthesizers
usually number their presets so you can choose them by
remote control using a preset number. Again, you'll have to
delve into the contents of your synthesizer's users manual to
find out what these numbers are. Once you know them, you
can choose a preset number in this requester using the MIDI
Preset Number slider to get the sound you want from the
synthesizer. Choose OK to close the requester.
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Now that the MIDI connection is set up for the specific sound
you want on a specific synthesizer, you put the setting in your
score the same way you choose an instrument:
1. Select the measure where you want the synthesizer to start

playing.
2. Choose the Set Instrument command from the Measures menu.

The MIDI setting that you last set up appears above the
measure.
You can change synthesizers and synthesizer presets at any

point in a score by first changing the MIDI setting in the Sounds
menu and then using the Set Instrument command just as you do to
change an instrument in a score.
SOME DELUXE MUSIC TIPS

Here are a few tips you can try to make entering scores in
Deluxe Music much easier.
Mark your printed scores

If you enter music from printed scores, invest in a set of colored
pencils. Before you start using Deluxe Music, go through the score
first and number each measure if they're not already numbered. Go
through again, and mark which notes you want to play with
different instruments. If you use a different colored pencil for each
instrument, it will be easier to see where each instrument is
playing, where notes get mixed together on the page, and where
each new instrument comes in.
As you enter the score in Deluxe Music, you can match the
measure numbers in the Deluxe Music score to the measure
numbers on the printed page to make sure you're entering music
from the right spot. Of course, if you split measures for ritardandos
and other effects, you may find your measure numbers off a bit. You
can avoid that by marking the measure splits on your printed score
before you number the measures. You can use the instrument
markings you made in the printed score to help you enter notes in
the correct Deluxe Music staff. Assign one color to each staff you
want to use, then enter only the notes you marked in that color to
the staff.
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Use keyboard shortcuts
Since the note palette is displayed on the screen in plain sight,
it's easy to forget that you often don't need to use it. Deluxe Music
lets you use keyboard shortcuts instead to choose the length of
note you want to enter in a score. Read about the shortcuts in the
manual and use them! They make life much easier. As musical
inspiration is flowing through your head and you're getting into the
swing of entering a melody on a staff, it's much easier to quickly
press a function key with your non-mouse hand to choose a new
note value than it is to move the pointer all the way to the side of
the screen, select a new note, and then try to find your staff
location and inspiration a second time.
MAKING A CASSETTE RECORDING USING

DELUXE MUSIC
To make a cassette recording of your music, all you have to do is

connect your Amiga to the cassette recorder, start the recorder, and
then start the music playing. Here are the details you'll need to
make a recording using Deluxe Music.
The easiest cable to use for connecting the Amiga to the re
corder is a stereo patch cord, which has two phono plugs on each
end, and carries two separate signals from the Amiga to the cas
sette recorder. To connect the cable, plug the two plugs on one end
of the patch cable into the two audio jacks labeled with the speaker
icons on the back of the Amiga's console. Note which colored plug
goes into which audio jack; as you face the back of the Amiga, the
jack on your right is the left stereo channel, the jack on the left is
the right stereo channel. (If this seems topsy-turvy, consider that
when you face the Amiga console from the front, the left port is
then on the left, and the right port is on the right.)
On the back of the cassette recorder are two jacks probably
labeled either REC IN or LINE IN, each with either an R for right or
an L for left- Plug the appropriate colored plug into these two jacks
so you match the left and right Amiga channels to the left and
right channels of the recorder. That's all there is to it.
To record your music, follow these steps:
1. Load Deluxe Music and the score you want to record.
2. To set the recording levels on your cassette recorder, find the

spot in your musical score with the loudest music. Set this
section of music so you can use it with Repeat Play, then play
it over and over again. While the section plays, you can
Amiga Music Tools
209
adjust the volume to the maximum level your recorder can
handle without distorting. Stop the score playback when
you're finished.
3. When you're ready to record, make sure your cassette is

rewound to the tape location where you want to start
recording. If you're starting at the beginning of a cassette,
make sure you advance the tape far enough to get past the
leader of the cassette, so the beginning of your music isn't
chopped off.
4. To start recording, press the Record key (or keys) on your

cassette recorder, then use the Play Song command to start
the score. When the score is finished, stop the recording by
pressing the Stop key on the cassette recorder.
SPECIAL EFFECTS USING THE TASCAM MINISTUDIO

PORTA ONE
When you use a recorder connected directly to the Amiga, you
record just what the Amiga puts out through its audio ports: voices
A and D coming from the left channel and voices B and C coming
from the right channel with no imaging. If you want to keep the
voices from sounding so separate, and would like to be able to re
cord more than four voices playing at once, you can use a recorder
like the Tascam Ministudio Porta One recorder.
The Porta One is a portable cassette recorder that records on
cassettes using four tracks instead of the two you normally get
with a stereo cassette recorder. It has a built-in mixing panel you
can use to record the left and right signals of the Amiga on any
of the four channels, or combinations of the channels. The Porta
One mixing panel lets you control the volumes of each individual
recording channel, and also lets you pan the sound between chan
nels so you can blend the two distinct left and right channels
coming from the Amiga. You can also use the pan controls as you
record to make one of the channels coming from the Amiga seem
to move from left to right.
With four available channels on the Porta One, you can record
two Amiga scores on the same tape and play them back in stereo
simultaneously For example, if you want to record an eight-voice
composition using just the Amiga, (something like a Beethoven
symphony arrangement), you can enter four of the voices as one
Deluxe Music score named BeethovenA and the other four voices
as a second score named BeethovenB. You can then record
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210
BeethovenA in stereo on tracks 1 and 2. When you're finished, you
can rewind the tape and start recording BeethovenB alongside
BeethovenA on tracks 3 and 4. When you play back the recording,
you can hear both scores playing together simultaneously in the full
eight-voice composition.
The Porta One also offers overdubbmg: This means that you
can mix the contents of any tape track already recorded with the
contents of another recorded track and record the mixture to a third
track, or you can mix one track with a new signal coming in, and
record the combination to a second track. In theory, this means
that you can keep overdubbmg to add an infinite number of voices
to the recording. For example, you can use overdubbmg with your
Amiga to create a recording of all of the 50 or so voices you'd need
to recreate Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" accurately. In practice,
each overdub deteriorates the quality of the recording a little, so too
many levels of overdubs can make the recording sound hissy and
indistinct. The Porta One has an excellent noise-reduction system
that lets you perform several levels of dubs, though, enough to
record over 40 Amiga voices without too much distortion.
SYNCHRONIZING AMIGA SCORES

If you use a mixer or overdubbing to combine Deluxe Music
scores, or if you and another Amiga owner get your computers
together to perform, it's important to make sure the scores start
playing at exactly the same time, or you'll go crazy listening to
notes that don't start at quite the same time throughout the whole
score. The best way to accomplish this is to create a "lead-in" for
one of the scoresa set of beats before the score starts playing so
that you can get the tempo and know exactly where to start the
second score.
To create a lead-in for a score, insert one or two measures of an
instrument playing every beat at the beginning of the score. For
example, in a 4/4 score, you might add two measures of quarter
notes at the beginning of the score as a lead-in, with a percussive
instrument like a snare drum beating each note. Then, when you
play the score back, you'll hear eight snare-drum beats lead into
Amiga Music Tools
211
the beginning of the music in the score. You can synchronize a
second score to this by starting the second score at the exact spot
where you think the ninth snare drum beat would fall: The two
scores should start simultaneously. This takes some practice and
attentive Listening to get it just right, but if you're recording the
results, the tape recorder won't mind if you stop and start over
again when you miss the beat.
OTHER AVAILABLE MUSIC SOFTWARE
There are a variety of other music programs for the Amiga

besides Deluxe Music that provide entirely different features and
abilities. Some of these programs might have just the features you
need to make the kind of music you want.
INSTANT MUSIC
Instant Music is a simple but enjoyable music program from
Electronic Arts. It's perfect for music dabblers. You can enter scores
up to 64 measures long on Instant Music using sampled sound
instruments included on the disk, and can play them back at dif
ferent speeds. Instead of using traditional notation, the scores are
laid out as a graph of pitch and time, which can be a real advan
tage if you don't read music as you can simply draw in voices on
the graph using the mouse and the pointer.
Instant Music also lets you perform music with a feature called
"mousejam." Using mousejam, instant Music plays higher and
lower pitches as you move the mouse pointer up and down. You
can play a score and use mousejam as accompaniment. You can
also limit the notes and rhythms you play with mousejam so that
no matter where you move the pointer, the notes you play will
sound good with the accompanying score.
SOUNDSCAPE
SoundScape is a music program from Mimetics Corporation that
is actually a lot of programs in one package. It can perform a range
of music tasks that make it useful to many different kinds of users,
including neophyte musicians who want to play their Amiga as a
SECTION 3: SOUNDS
212
musical instrument, advanced musicians who want to tie banks
of synthesizers together to create sophisticated music, and ad
vanced programmers who want an easy way to add music to
their programs.
The heart of SoundScape is a music operating system that
specializes in handling music data and running music programs.
When you first load SoundScape, the music operating system
integrates itself with the Amiga operating system so they work
together simultaneously. The music operating system contains
many routines to create and play scores, handle waveform tables,
and create music much like the Amiga operating system's devices
and libraries take care of graphics, text, math operations, and other
functions. These routines make full use of the sound software in the
Amiga's operating system.
Advanced programmers can use SoundScape's music operating
system as an extended version of the Amiga's operating system to
create music without doing all the programming themselves. Since
SoundScape's music routines run simultaneously with other Amiga
programs, a programmer creating an education application, for ex
ample, can feed SoundScape some simple information about the
music that he wants in his program, and SoundScape will play
the music in the background while the education program runs.
For non-programmers, SoundScape comes with its own pro
grams that use the music operating system. When you first load
SoundScape, the music operating system is loaded, then several
windows open on the monitor screen. Each window contains its
own program. These programs all run simultaneously, and they
work together so you can create some impressive music with them.
One of the simplest SoundScape programs lets you play the
Amiga's keyboard like a musical instrument. Another simple pro
gram is a MIDI clock, a fancy sort of metronome that ticks out time
in different tempos and subdivisions so that MIDI instruments
and programs connected to it are synchronized by its signals.
Another very useful and enjoyable SoundScape program is the
sampled sound editor. It lets you alter sampled sound instruments
from the Mimetics SoundScape sound sampler (discussed later in
this chapter) or from other programs like Instant Music or Deluxe
Music. You can use the editor to select which portion of the sound
to use as the sustain loop, set the amplitude envelope of the
instrument, and transpose the sound to new octaves, among other
things. When you're finished, the editor saves the new or revised
sampled sound instruments to disk so you can use them with the
other SoundScape programs or other music application programs.
Amiga Music Tools
213
The most extensive of SoundScape's programs is the MIDI
recorder. It records notes and other performance events played on
synthesizers attached to the Amiga through a MIDI adaptor or on
the Amiga's own keyboard. The recorder has an unlimited number
of tracks in its memory. You can record music on each track, and
later mix the notes on individual tracks together on one track, or
play back any combination of tracks through the MIDI adaptor or
the Amiga's own audio channels. The MIDI recorder can receive or
transmit on 16 different MIDI channels, so you can use it to record
and control up to 16 MIDI devices at a time. The MIDI recorder also
includes an editor that lets you look at the information recorded on
any track, change it to correct any mistakes you made while
playing the music, or add new notes.
Another SoundScape program, the mixing panel, controls all
the other programs that run with it. It lets you connect any of the
other SoundScape programs and MIDI channels with any other
SoundScape program or MIDI channel. This gives you a wide range
of possibilities. For example, you can use the Amiga's keyboard to
record your performance on the MIDI recorder. Or you can connect
the MIDI In signals to the Amiga itself so you can play the sampled
sound instruments stored in the Amiga using the keyboard of an
attached synthesizer. The possibilities offered by the mixing panel
are numerous enough to keep you occupied for months at least, and
when you consider that the modular nature of SoundScape makes it
easy to add other programs to it, the possibilities become limitless.
THE IFF MUSIC STANDARD

You'll recall from Chapter 3 that Electronic Arts and Commodore-
Amiga created the IFF standard to make it easy to transfer data
from one program to another program. The IFF graphics standard
lets you transfer pictures between programs like Deluxe Paint and
Aegis Images. There are also IFF standards that apply to music:
one for musical scores, and another for sampled sound instruments.
If a program uses the IFF standard to save scores and instru
ments, then you can exchange scores and instruments between
programs that conform to the IFF standard. As an example,
SoundScape and the SoundScape sound sampler both save in
struments using the IFF standard, so any instruments you create
with these programs can also be used with Deluxe Music and
Instant Music.
SECTION 3: SOUNDS
214
ADDITIONAL SOUND HARDWARE FOR THE AMIGA
Just as you can add hardware to the Amiga to enhance its

graphics, you can also add sound hardware to make your Amiga
sound better and increase its music-making capabilities. The
following sections describe some of the hardware you can add,
ranging from external speakers to a network of external
synthesizers.
SPEAKERS
The speaker in most computer monitors is no better than the
tiny (and tinny) speaker in the average television set. If you've ever
listened to the garbled sound of music coming from an average TV
set, then you know why it pays to add some high-fidelity speakers
to your Amiga system if you plan to use it for any kind of music at
all and want to take advantage of its superior multi-voice sound
capabilities.
Using a stereo system

If you own a good stereo system, you can connect your Amiga
to the system's amplifier to hear the Amiga through the stereo
speakers. It's no more difficult than connecting a cassette deck to
the amplifier because the Amiga puts out a line-level audio
signalthe same signal strength used by most cassette decks.
To connect your Amiga to a stereo system, first turn off both the
Amiga and the stereo system. Use stereo patch cables to connect
the Amiga's audio ports to a pair of stereo inputs on the back of
your amplifier, just as you would connect the Amiga to a cassette
deck. The inputs you use on your amplifier could be any inputs
labeled for a tape deck, a compact disc player, a videotape player,
or other auxiliary device. The only input that you should avoid is an
input for a phonograph player; it expects a much weaker signal
than the Amiga puts out, will distort the sound of the Amiga, and
may even blow out your speakers if you turn up your amplifier's
volume too high.
Amiga Music Tools
215
After the connection is made, turn on the power to both
systems, load your music program, then play a score. Turn up the
volume of the stereo system slowly. If the speakers blare out when
you've barely cracked the volume, then you know the Amiga's
signal is too strong. Repeat the connection process and try another
pair of inputs.
Self-powered speakers
If you don't have a stereo system you want to use with your
Amiga, you might consider buying a pair of self-powered speakers
that contain their own amplifiers. Self-powered speakers don't have
to be part of a larger sound systemyou just hook them up
directly to the Amiga's audio ports and turn them on. Most self-
powered speakers are also small, and can fit on your desk on each
side of the Amiga for good stereo separation.
The most common type of self-powered speakers are the small
speakers designed to work with very small, portable cassette
players. Unfortunately, most of these speakers won't work with the
Amiga because they're designed to use the signal from the head
phone jack of the cassette player, which has already been ampli
fied by the player so that it's stronger than a line-level signal.
Speakers designed to use just a headphone signal don't have
enough amplification power to work well with the Amiga.
Some self-powered speakers are designed to work with syn
thesizers. They use a line-level input, have plenty of amplification,
and usually have good sound. A good example of this kind of
speaker is the Casio AS-20 speaker. It has a built-in graphic
equalizer and chorus knobs that let you jazz up the sound, a
headphone jack, and two separate inputs.
Shopping for speakers

When you go shopping for a pair of speakers for your Amiga,
you'll want to check them out without dragging your Amiga from
store to store. Ask the sales clerk to demonstrate the speakers by
connecting them to a cassette deck or compact disc player. Make
sure he doesn't connect the speakers to the headphone jack of the
deck or player, but to the line-out jacks. Since cassette decks and
compact disc players put out the same strength signal as the
Amiga, the speakers that work with them should also work with
your Amiga.
SECTION 3: SOUNDS
216
Portable cassette players
Another way to get good sound from your Amiga is to use a
battery-powered portable cassette player with an amplifier and
stereo speakers built in. Many of these players have jacks for a line-
level input where you can plug in the Amiga. Portable cassette
players have an added advantage: You can also use them to record
your Amiga music.
SOUND SAMPLERS
Some of the best-sounding instruments in the music application
software mentioned here are sampled sound instruments. They
were created with a sound sampler (sometimes called an audio
digitizer), a device that converts analog signals from a microphone,
tape deck, or other sound source into a digital waveform table.
If you want to create your own sampled sound instruments, you
can buy a sound sampler and start collecting sounds. Several are
made to work with the Amiga. Some have their own built-in
microphones; some take stereo sound samples. One important
feature to look for is accompanying software that defines your
sound samples and saves them to disk as sampled sound
instruments.
One of the best (and most inexpensive) samplers available is the
SoundScape sound sampler from Mimetics Corporation. It's a small
stereo sampler that plugs into the second joystick port of the
Amiga, which is an advantage over sound samplers that plug into
the Amiga's expansion connector and block it so you can't add
other peripherals without removing the sampler. It doesn't have a
built-in microphone, but has a microphone jack and a set of stereo
line-level jacks so that you can use your own microphone or other
sound source.
The SoundScape sound sampler comes with software that lets
you create a waveform table with the sampler, edit it, and then save
it to disk. It uses the same sampled sound editor included with the
SoundScape program described in the software section of this
chapter. The software also lets you control the Amiga via a MIDI
adaptor so you can play the Amiga and its sampled sounds with an
attached external synthesizer.
Amiga Music Tools
217
THE MIDI ADAPTOR
As you recall from the last chapter, MIDI is a synthesizer industry
standard that lets synthesizers exchange music information. To
change the signals coming from the Amiga to a MIDI signal, you
need to attach a MIDI adaptor to the serial port. Several companies
market MIDI adaptors for the Amiga.
Any MIDI adaptor you get should plug directly into the Amiga
serial port and should have all three MIDI connections on it: MIDI In,
MIDI Out, and MIDI Thru. Watch for bargains: Some software
companies may include a MIDI adaptor with their MIDI programs,
others may have a great price on the MIDI adaptor alone.
EXTERNAL MIDI SYNTHESIZERS

Once you have a MIDI adaptor on your Amiga, you can add up to
16 different synthesizers and other musical devices that have MIDI
interfaces. If you plan to connect a synthesizer to the Amiga to use
with MIDI recorder software, the synthesizer should at least have
MIDI In and MIDI Out jacks to send information to and from the
MIDI recorder software on the Amiga. If you want to connect more
than one synthesizer to the Amiga, then you should make sure that
the synthesizers also have a MIDI Thru jack.
You can find a wide variety of MIDI synthesizers, ranging from
professional synthesizers that cost tens of thousands of dollars to
"toy" synthesizers that cost only a few hundred dollars. One of the
best synthesizers available in a low price range is the Casio CZ-101
synthesizer.
The CZ-101 is a full-featured digital synthesizer It has a set of 32
different instruments stored in its own memory, and it provides you
with the controls to design your own instruments that you can
store in small non-volatile RAM cartridges that plug into the back
of the CZ-101.
The CZ-101 has a four-octave keyboard that plays up to eight
notes at a time, and a pitch wheel that lets you bend the pitch of
any note up and down as you play it. Unfortunately, the keyboard is
smaller than a standard keyboard, and can be hard to play if you're
used to a standard keyboard. Another synthesizer to consider is the
Casio CZ-1000, which is identical in all respects to the CZ-101, but
has a full-size keyboard and a higher price.
The CZ-101 has MIDI In and MIDI Out ports, so you can use it
with Amiga MIDI recorder software. In addition, it has two MIDI
modes that make it valuable in use with a MIDI recorder: You can
use the CZ-101 as a single synthesizer playing up to eight notes
simultaneously on one MIDI channel, or you can use it in a special
mode to make the CZ-101 work like four separate synthesizers on
four individual MIDI channels.
SECTION 3: SOUNDS
218
In the special mode, the CZ-101 lets you choose four different
instruments from its memory, one for each of four MIDI channels.
Each instrument is monophonicthat is, it only plays back one
note at a time. It can't play back chords. To use the special mode,
an Amiga MIDI recorder can send signals through the four different
channels to play a four-part score using four individual instruments.
(Since all 16 MIDI channels come through a single cable, you only
need a single MIDI In connection-) Most synthesizers don't let you
use more than one instrument at a time, so you gain guite a bit of
versatility using the CZ-101.
You've had a chance now to use some tricks to enter

Deluxe Music scores. You've also seen some of the addi
tional software and hardware that can open up some new
musical worlds to you as an Amiga user. In the next chap
ter, you'll learn how to use Amiga BASIC sound state
ments to make music or to synthesize speech.
Amiga Music Tools
219
CHAPTER NINE
AMIGA BASIC
SOUND: MUSIC AND
SPEECH
Amiga BASIC doesn't have nearly as many statements
and functions that deal with sound as statements and
functions that deal with graphics: There are a total of six
sound statements if you count BEEP (which many people
don't), and one sound function. But don't let their numbers
fool you. Amiga BASIC sound statements are powerful, and
capable of a wide variety of effects.
This chapter deals with two kinds of sound statements:
statements that create music and sound effects, and state
ments (well, actually a statement and a function) that
create speech. In addition to explaining how these state
ments work, this chapter also shows you how to use the
statements in larger programs, and how to create musical
scales and play back musical scores.
THE BEEP STATEMENT
The BEEP statement is an easy introduction to sound on the

Amigait's very simple. It uses this format:
BEEP
When your program executes BEEP, it flashes the entire screen

briefly, using inverse colors, and makes a short beep using the
monitor speaker. The signal for the beep comes from the left audio
port in the back of the Amiga console. It's pitched at A880, two A's
above middle C on the piano. The beep uses whatever waveform is
in audio channel 0, so you can change its timbre with the WAVE
statement. (You can find out more about audio channels in the
description of SOUND, and more about changing timbres in
the description of WAVE later in this chapter.)
Since you can't change the length or pitch of BEEP's beep,
BEEP isn't often used for music or sound effects. It is more com
monly used as a prompt at the end of a long BASIC task to let the
user know the task is finished. BEEP can call you back in from
another room so you don't have to pace back and forth in front
of the Amiga.
SECTION 3: SOUNDS
222
THE SOUND STATEMENT
SOUND plays a note or a rest, and controls three sound attri

butes: pitch, duration, and volume. It also controls which audio
channel a note will play from. It uses this format:
SOUND frequency, duration, volume, audio channel
The frequency can be any number from 20 to 15000. It specifies the

number of cycles per second (cps), which sets the pitch of the
note. The duration is any number from 0 to 77; it sets the length
of the note from no length at all (0) to a note that lasts 4.23 seconds
(77). The volume is a number from 0 to 255. Using 0 provides no
volume at all (silence), and 255 is the loudest possible volume. The
audio channel is an integer from 0 to 3 that assigns the note to
the audio channel of the same number.
The values for volume and audio channel are optional. If you
leave them out of the SOUND statement, the note will have a default
volume of 127 (halfway between silence and full volume), and it will
play on audio channel 0, through the left audio port.
SETTING THE FREQUENCY

If you're familiar with pitches measured in cycles per second,
then setting the pitch of a note created by the SOUND statement is
very straightforward. You just enter the frequency of the pitch you
want. If, like most people, you are more familiar with pitch names
like A, B, C, D, E, F, and G, then a quick look at how frequency is
related to pitch will help you understand how to set the pitch for
the note you want.
To describe pitches in different octaves, pitch names tradi
tionally have a subscript numbered from 0 to 10 to show the octave
in which the pitch falls. Therefore, Eo is the E in octave number 0.
the lowest octave, and Bbin is the Br in the 10th octave, the highest
octave. Don't confuse this Amiga BASIC system with systems used
to describe pitch names in music application programs, where the
octave numbers sometimes start at a higher octave and can't
describe pitches as high and as low as you are reading about in
this chapter.
The range of frequencies you can use with the SOUND statement
is 20 cps to 15000 cps. That is a range from Eo (the third E below the
bottom of the bass clef) to Bb9 (the fifth Bb above the treble clef), a
range of about eight and a half octaves. Compare that to the range
of a piano, which is six and a half octaves.
To get an idea of how the frequencies relate to specific pitches,
consider some familiar examples. The C in the middle of the piano
keyboard, usually called middle C, is C4 and has a frequency of
Amiga BASIC Sound: Music and Speech
223
26163 cps. The A above that is A4, the note that orchestras use to
tune. Musicians know it as A440, so it's not surprising that its
frequency is 440 cps.
Figure 9-1
Pitch Frequency Pitch Frequency Pitch Frequency
A list of pitches and their

20.602 196.00 1864.7
frequencies that can be

21.827 20765 1975.5
used with the SOUND 23.125 220.00
c7 2093.0
statement a 24.500 233.08
c#7 2217.5
25.957 246.94
D7 2349.3
A, 27.500
261.63 2489.0
E7?
29.13
277.185 2637.0
D 293.66 F7 2793.8
32.703 311.13 2960.0
cc. 34.648 329.63 G7? 3136.0
36.708 349.23 3322.4
38.891 369.99 A7? 3520.0
41.203 G4 392.00 3729.3
43.654 415.30 B7? 3951.1
46.249 A, 440.00
48.999 466.16 c8 4186.0
4434.9
Ga 51.913 B 493.88
D8 4698.6
55.000
523.25 4978.0
AC, 58.270
554.37 E8 5274.0
61.735
D 587.33 F8 5587.7
C 65.406 622.25 5919.9
69.296 659.26 Gg 6271.9
73.416 698.46 GJIg 6644.9
Dtt. 77.782 739.99 Ag 7040.0
82.407 783.99 A#g 7458.6
87307 830.61 B8 7902.1
FC2 92.499 880.00
8372.0
G2 97.999 932.33
8869.8
G, 103.83 98777
9397.3
110.00
1046.5 9956.1
116.54
1108.7 10548.1
123.47
6
1174.7 11175.3
130.81 DJJ 1244.5 11839.8
138.59 1318.5 12543.9
146.83 1396.9 13289.8
155.56 1480.0 A9 14080.0
164.81 1568.0 149172
174.61 Gtt, 1661.2
185.00 AK 1760.0
SECTION 3: SOUNDS
224
If you double the frequency of a pitch, you get a pitch one octave
higher. If you halve the frequency, you get a pitch one octave lower.
For example, if you double A4's frequency of 440 cps, you get 880
cps, which is A5, an A one octave higher. 220 cps, half of 440 cps, is
A3, an A one octave lower than An.
Figure 9-1 gives you a list of the pitches SOUND can create,
followed by their frequencies. This list of pitches is a tempered
scale, a standard used by most musicians, and is tuned so that A4
is at 440 cps.
To be able to hear all these pitches, you need to connect your
Amiga to a good audio system. If you use only the Amiga's monitor
speaker to produce sounds, you probably won't be able to hear any
pitches under 100 cps or over 8000 cps unless you change the
waveform of the pitch with the WAVE statement (discussed later in
this chapter).
SETTING THE DURATION

The duration value of the SOUND statement can be any number
from 0 to 77. The larger the number, the longer the note lasts. A
value of 0 means the note has no length. A value of 1 makes the
note last a little more than 1/20 of a second. A value of 18.2 makes
the note last exactly one second, and the maximum value of 77
makes the note last about 4.23 seconds. For example, this
statement plays an A440 for one second:
SOUND 440, 18.2
If you figure out the length in seconds of the note you want to
sound, you can multiply it by 18.2 to come up with the duration
value to use in the SOUND statement. For example, a^-second
sound would use 9.1 as its duration value. To make a sound last
longer than 4.23 seconds, you can use two or more SOUND state
ments with the same pitch, volume, and audio channel values,
one after the other. They will run together to create one long note.
For example, these two statements play one F4 that lasts for seven
seconds:
SOUND 349.23, 72.8
SOUND 349.23, 54.G
The first SOUND statement plays a 4-second note, the second

SOUND statement plays a 3-second note. (Since no volume or audio
channel is specified in the statements, the notes both have
a default volume of 127 and play on audio channel 0.)
225
SETTING THE VOLUME
Choosing a SOUND volume is a simple matter of choosing a
number from 0 to 255. If you choose 0, you won't be able to hear the
note you set, so it doesn't matter what frequency you specified. The
silence will last as long as the duration you set, so you can use 0
volume to create a rest. For example, the middle SOUND statement
below puts a /?.-second rest in between two surrounding notes that
play at full volume:
SOUND 140, 18.2, 255
SOUND 440, 9.1, 0
SDUND 392, 18.2, 255
You can use volume values between 0 and 255 to play a note
at different volumes. Just remember that the volume you set is
affected by the volume control on your monitor or stereo system.
If you turn the volume control down to half of its previous volume,
all the notes created with the SOUND statement will be halved
in volume.
CHOOSING AN AUDIO CHANNEL

You can choose any one of the Amiga's four internal audio chan
nels to play a note created with a SOUND statement. By using four
different SOUND statements, one for each channel, you can sound
four notes simultaneously. For example, these four SOUND state
ments play a C major chord:
SOUND 261.63, 20, 255, 0
SOUND 329.63, 20, 255, 1
SOUND 392, 20, 255, 2
SDUND 523.25, 20, 255, 3
The outputs of the four internal audio channels are mixed

together before they are passed through the two audio ports on
the back of the console to an outside speaker. Channels 0 and 3
come out of the left audio port, and channels 1 and 2 come out of
the right audio port. If you have stereo speakers attached to your
Amiga, you can make a note sound in either the left or right
speaker by choosing the appropriate audio channel in the
SOUND statement.
Each internal audio channel has its own waveform that deter
mines the timbre of the notes created with the SOUND statement
SECTION 3: SOUNDS
226
on that channel. You can change the waveform with the WAVE
statement, discussed later in this chapter. If you set different
waveforms for each of the audio channels, then you can choose the
timbre of the note a SOUND statement plays by specifying the audio
channel with the waveform you want.
SYNCHRONIZING SOUNDS
As you've seen in the previous example, it's possible to produce

notes from the four internal audio channels simultaneously by using
four SOUND statements. It can be difficult to make all four notes
start at exactly the same time, however, if you have entered any
other BASIC statements m between the SOUND statements. Since
Amiga BASIC steps through the statements one at a time, there can
be a delay between SOUND statements, which can throw the
individual notes out of sync. Amiga BASIC has two statements that
help you synchronize notes: SOUND WAIT and SOUND RESUME.
THE SOUND WAIT AND SOUND RESUME STATEMENTS

SOUND WAIT is used along with SOUND RESUME to synchronize
the Amiga's audio channels so they start playing notes at exactly
the same time. This ensures that notes in multiple-voice music will
play together without the risk of one voice getting off from the beat.
SOUND WAIT prevents sounds generated by the SOUND statement
from going to the speakerinstead, the sounds are held in a
"queue," which can be thought of as a holding tank in the Amiga's
memory. Each audio channel has its own queue that it uses to
store up to twelve notes and rests. A single SOUND WAIT statement
starts all four queues working. If you attempt to store more than
twelve notes and rests in a channel's queue (twelve SOUND state
ments sent to one channel), you will get an out-of-memory error.
SOUND WAIT uses this simple format:
SOUND WAIT
When Amiga BASIC encounters this statement, any sounds

created by subsequent SOUND statements are held in the queues
until you release them with a SOUND RESUME statement. SOUND
RESUME sends the contents of the queues to the speakers at
exactly the same time, simultaneously sounding all the voices
227
through the speakers. The queues are cleared as the stored notes
are played. The format of SOUND RESUME is simply:
SOUND RESUME
To see how SOUND WAIT and SOUND RESUME work, try the
following program. It creates five notes for each of three audio
channels: channel 0, channel 1, and channel 2. There is a loop just
after the SOUND statements for channel 1 that extends the length of
time the program takes to get to the channel 2 SOUND statements.
This makes it easy to hear a time lag between voices. There is also
an infinite loop at the end of the program to keep the List window
from appearing. If a window appears while notes are playing, it can
delay one of the audio channels and ruin the synchronization of the
four voices.
First enter and run this program without typing in the SOUND
WAIT and SOUND RESUME statements shown:
SOUND WAIT
SOUND 261.63, 12, 255, 0
SOUND 196, 12, 255 0

SOUND 261.63, 12, 255, 0
SOUND 196, 12, 255 > o

SOUND 261.63, 48, 255, 0
SOUND 261.63, 12, 255, 1
SOUND 293.66, 12, 255, 1
SOUND 329.63, 12, 255, 1
SOUND 293.66, 12, 255, 1
SOUND 261.63, 48, 255, 1
FOR t = 1 TO 1 000: NEXT t
SOUND 329.63, 12, 255, 2
SOUND 319.23, 12, 255, 2
SOUND 392, 12, 255 2

SOUND 349.23, 12, 255, 2
SOUND 329.63, 18, 255, 2
SOUND RESUME
Loop : GDTD Loop
You should be able to hear one voice (channel 2) starting and

ending much later than the other two voices. Now insert the
SOUND WAIT and SOUND RESUME statements in the program and
run it again. All three voices should start and end at the same time,
since SOUND WAIT queues up the notes, and then SOUND RESUME
starts them playing at the same time.
SECTION 3: SOUNDS
228
THE WAVE STATEMENT
You can use the WAVE statement to create a new waveform table
for each of the four audio channels. Changing a channel's waveform
table changes the timbre of any sound played through that channel.
WAVE uses this format:
WAVE audio channel, integer array name
The audio channel is an integer from 0 to 3 that specifies the audio

channel to which you want to assign a new waveform table. The
integer array name is the name of the integer array that contains
the data for the waveform table. You have to create the array before
you use the WAVE statement.
You can substitute the specification SIN in place of the integer
array name to make WAVE automatically create a sine waveform
table for the audio channel you specify. All the audio channels use a
sine waveform as a default waveform if you don't change their
waveform tables with a WAVE statement. Using SIN in the WAVE
statement returns the audio channel to its default waveform.
CREATING A WAVEFORM TABLE

To create a waveform table for the WAVE statement, your first
step is to dimension an array. WAVE uses an integer array; any
other type of array will generate a Type Mismatch error in your
program. The array must have at least 256 elements in it, but it can
be longer if you want to define a more detailed waveform within a
waveform table. As an example, the following statement dimen
sions an integer array named form% to include 256 elements (0 to
255). The % signifies that it is a short (2-byte) integer array:
DIM formX(255)
The next step is to fill the elements of the array with waveform
table data. Each of the 256 elements in the array must be an integer
between -128 to 127, inclusive. The array elements in order from
lowest to highest describe the shape of a waveform from left to
right in a waveform graph. To get an idea of how this works, look
at Figure 9-2 on the next page. It depicts a waveform on a graph,
and then shows the first section of the waveform magnified, with
the first 6 waveform table values plotted. These first 6 values go
into the first 6 elements of the integer array, followed by the next
250 elements needed to describe the full waveform.
Amiga BASIC Sound. Music and Speech
229
Figure 9-2.
+ 127-r
The graph of a full sound
waveform, showing an
enlargement of the be
ginning of the waveform
and the first six wave
form table values
-128-1-
To fill the elements of the array with waveform table values,

you can set up a FOR.. .NEXT loop to read a value for each ele
ment with READ and DATA statements, or you can create a
FOR.. .NEXT loop with a mathematical formula that creates the
waveform values as the loop progresses.
Reading waveform data into the waveform array

To read waveform data in the waveform array with READ and
DATA statements, you first have to have at least 256 waveform table
values. One way to get them is to first draw the waveform on graph
paper, then measure the amplitude of the waveform at 256 different
points along the horizontal axis of the graph, as you saw above in
Figure 9-2. Be sure to scale the vertical axis of the graph so that
the waveform goes no higher than 127 and no lower than 128.
Enter the values in DATA statements in the order you read them
from left to right.
SECTION 3: SOUNDS
230
The following statements show a FOR,. .NEXT loop that runs 256
times and reads a waveform value into the lorm.% array each time.
The DATA statements following the loop contain the waveform data,
but not all the DATA statements are shown here (you don't really
want to read 256 values, do you?):
DIM formX(2S5)
FOR i M TO 255
READ formX(1)
NEXT i
DATA -112, -112, -111, -110, -108, -105, -103, -94 , -83 etc .
Calculating simple waveforms

A much shorter way to create a waveform table is to calculate
the waveform with a simple formula inside a FOR. - .NEXT loop. This
works very well for simple waveforms such as square waves, saw
tooth waves, and notch waves. (You can see examples of all these
waves in Figure 9-4 on the next page.) These statements show
how to create a sawtooth waveform:
DIM formX(2SS)
FDR i = 0 TD 2S5
formX(i) =127-i
NEXT i
This short loop would create the waveform you see in Figure 9-3 if
form% is applied using a WAVE statement.
+ 127-r Figure 9-3.
A sawtooth waveform
can be created with a
simple formula.
231
Here are some other simple formulas and program steps that will
create more simple waveforms with distinct timbres. Just put them
m the same loop shown above, replacing the sawtooth formula with
the formula you want- You can see the waves created by the
formulas in Figure 9-4, except for the random waveform, which
turns out a different waveform each time you use it.
A square waveform;
IF i < 128 THEN formX(i) = 127 ELSE formX(i) - -128
A triangle waveform:
IF l < 128 THEN formX(i) - (2*i) - 128 ELSE formX(i) - 383 -(2*i
A notch waveform:
IF i < 5 THEN formX(i) - 127 ELSE formX(i) = -128
A random waveform:
formX(I) -127 - INT(256 RND)
-127 -127 127 -n
Figure 9-4.
Waveforms created using

simple formulas.
128- 128 J
Square waveform Triangle waveform Notch waveform
You can no doubt come up with other formulas that create

waveforms with distinct timbres. Any formula is safe to use as long
as its results are always integers that are not lower than - 128 or
higher than 127. It's also important to make sure that at least some
of the values come close to the limits of the - 128 to 127 integer
range. If they don't, the volume of the sound won't be very high. For
example, if you create a waveform that goes no higher than 6 and
no lower than - 3, you're going to have trouble hearing it at all,
regardless of the volume setting of your monitor speaker.
ASSIGNING A WAVEFORM TABLE TO AN AUDIO CHANNEL

Once you've created a waveform table and assigned it to a
waveform array, it's a simple matter to assign the table to an audio
channel. Just specify the audio channel and the name of the array
SECTION 3: SOUNDS
232
in a WAVE statement. To hear the waveform, you can use a SOUND
statement to play a note using the same audio channel. The fol
lowing short program creates a notch waveform in channel 0, then
plays an A,, for one second at full volume in channel 0 so you can
hear the waveform:
DIM formX(255)
FDR i - 0 TD 255
IF i < 5 THEN formX(i) = 127 ELSE formX(l) = -128

NEXT i
WAVE 0, form*
SDLJND 440 , 18.2, 255 , 0
If you want to hear some other waveforms, try replacing the

notch waveform formula in the program with some of the other
waveform formulas.
CREATING A MUSICAL SCALE ARRAY
If you use individual SOUND statements to create a series of

notes, you'll find it can get tedious to look up a pitch and use the
correct frequency for each note. You can simplify your task a great
deal by creating an array that stores the frequency for each pitch of
the tempered scale; then all you have to do is specify the array
name and element number of each note you want to use in a
SOUND statement. The following program creates an array for each
pitch of the tempered scale, and then plays all the pitches in the
array from bottom to top:
DIM pitch(118)
halfstep* = 2#A(1#/12#)
f requency# = 13.75
FDR i = 1 TO 8
frequency* halfstep* frequency*

NEXT i
FDR i = 4 TO 116
frequency^ = halfstep^ frequency
pitch(i) frequency^
NEXT i
FDR i = 4 TO 116
SDLJND pitch(l) , 4, 2S5

NEXT i
Amiga BASIC Sound. Music and Speech
233
Chances are you won't hear all the pitches when you run the
program, since some of them are beyond the range of the monitor
speaker, and the default sine waveform that plays the notes is hard
to hear in the low range. If you assign a notch waveform to channel
0 with a WAVE statement at the beginning of this program, you
should be able to hear the low notes much better.
Crucial to this program is the fact that if you multiply a
frequency by the 12th root of 2 (which is 2 A (1/12) in Amiga BASIC),
the resulting frequency is one half step higher than the original
frequency The variable halfstep# is set to the 12th root of 2 in the
second line of the program, and is used in lines 5 and 8 as a
multiplier to create half step increases in frequency. The program
starts with a base frequency of 13.75, one octave below Ag, to tune
the entire scale at 440 cps for A4 (13.75 is 440 divided by 2 five
times, and is therefore five octaves below A440recall that halving
a frequency lowers it by one octave). The variable frequency^
holds the current frequency values. These two variables are both
double-precision variables (specified by the "#") and use double-
precision constants in their calculations to ensure accuracy of
intonation over many different multiplications.
The first loop in the program multiplies frequency^ by halfstep#
to create eight half step pitches, but doesn't store them in the pitch
array, since they're all below 20 cps, and cannot be used in the
SOUND statement. The next loop, which steps from 4 to 116, con
tinues multiplying frequency^ by halfstep# to create new half-step
frequencies, starting where the last loop left off. It stores them in
the successive elements of the array pitch, starting at element 4,
the lowest pitch, and ending with element 116, the highest pitch.
The series starts at 4 because the lowest pitch in the array is Eo,
which is the lowest pitch possible in Amiga BASIC. By numbering
this pitch 4, all the following C's, which begin each octave of
pitches, are numbered as multiples of 12. This makes it easier to
remember the elements of the pitch array, as you'll see later.
The last loop at the end of the program plays the pitches stored
in the array, stepping through pitches from pitch(4) to pitch(W).
To determine which pitch in an array to use in a SOUND state
ment, multiply the octave number of the pitch you want by 12, then
add a number from this chart for each different pitch:
Figure 9-5.
c 0 FC or Gb 6
Cfl or Db 1 G 7
Traditional music
D 2 GS or Ab 8
notation showing the
DC or Eb 3 A 9
positions of notes and
E 4 Atf or Bb 10
their names
F 5 B 11
SECTION 3: SOUNDS
234
For example, A^ would be pitch element number 57 (4 times 12,
plus 9). To play an A4 for one second, you would use:
SOUND pitch(57) , 18.2
The real utility of a pitch array becomes apparent when you

want to play a piece of music using SOUND statements.
PLAYING A MUSICAL SCORE
Any piece of music you want to create on the Amiga is likely to

contain quite a few notes. If you create the notes with one SOUND
statement for each note, you're going to have a very long program
and a lot of typing to do. An easier solution is to use a SOUND
statement within a loop that reads values for pitch, duration,
volume, and voice number from DATA statements that contain data
for the score. The following program lines do just that. They play a
short four-voice flourish of music that starts softly and gets louder
at the end.
The following program lines are not a complete program; they
need a pitch array like the one in the previous example to work
correctly. To hear the flourish, substitute the following program
lines for the last three lines of the pitch-array example shown on
page 233, then run the new program.
SDUND WAIT
FOR l = 0 TO 3
SDUND 30, 5, , i
NEXT i
SDUND RESUME
Loop :
FDR i = 0 TO 3
READ pitch(i), octave(i), duration(i), volume(i)
IF pitch( i ) = -1 GOTO KillTime
SDUND pitch!(12*octave(1))+pitch(i)), 32/durat1 on( 1) , volume(i), 1

NEXT i
GOTO Loop
(continued)
235
KlllTlmei
FDR t = 1 TO 4000: NEXT t: END
MusicDa ta:
DATA 7,4,1G,G3, 7,3,4,63, 4,3,4,63, 0,3,4,G3
DATA 0,5,16,87, 7,3,4,159, 2,3,4,159, 11,2,4,159
DATA 11,4,16,111, 7,3,4,255, 4,3,4,255, 0,3,4,255
DATA 9,4,16,135, 0,0,16,0, 0,0,16,0, 0,0,16,0
DATA 9,4,16,159, 0,0,16,0, 0,0,16,0, 0,0,16,0
DATA 9,4,16,183, 0,0,16,0, 0,0,16,0, 0,0,16,0
DATA 9,4,16,207, 0,0,16,0, 0,0,16,0, 0,0,16,0
DATA 9,4,16,231, 0,0,16,0, 0,0,16,0, 0,0,16,0
DATA 9,4,16,255, 0,0,16,0, 0,0,16,0, 0,0,16,0

DATA -1 ,-1,-1,-1
The first loop in these program lines, sandwiched between a

SOUND WAIT and a SOUND RESUME statement, causes each of the
four voices to play a rest of exactly the same duration. The SOUND
WAIT and SOUND RESUME statements synchronize the four rests
so they all begin at exactly the same time. While these rests are
playing, the program reads data into the pitch array and uses them
to create notes with the SOUND statement that follows. Because the
rests are still playing, these notes are held in readiness for each
audio channel until the rests end. Since the rests end at exactly the
same time, the notes from the later SOUND statements all start at
the same time, so the four voices of the flourish are synchronized.
This method of using a short rest loop at the beginning of a
score to synchronize the notes, instead of using multiple SOUND
WAIT and SOUND RESUME statements, is preferable for long
musical scores. This is because the note queue created for each
voice by SOUND WAIT only holds 12 notes at a time per voice, so
you would have to use many contiguous SOUND WAIT and SOUND
RESUME statements to synchronize a long score. If you run a
program containing a contiguous series of SOUND WAIT and
SOUND RESUME statements, the music will "hiccup" when one
queue ends and another begins. The rest-loop method used in this
program isn't really needed for a flourish this short, but it will come
in very handy if you want to replace the DATA statements shown
here with your own DATA statements for a longer piece of music.
After the synchronization loop is an infinite loop named Loop:. In
it is a FOR.. .NEXT loop that makes one pass for each audio channel
(from 0 to 3). Each time the FOR.. .NEXT loop makes a pass, it uses
a READ statement to read four specificationspitch, octave, dura
tion, and volumeand stores them in four variables. In the next
line, it checks to see if the pitch is -1, a value that serves as a flag
at the end of the music data to show that the score is ended. If it
is -1, the program exits the loop and ends.
SECTION 3: SOUNDS
236
If it's not the end of the score, the next line of the FOR.. .NEXT
loop multiplies the octave value by 12 and adds the scale pitch
value to come up with the correct element of the pitch array which
it uses as the frequency in the SOUND statement. The notes dura
tion is set by dividing a set value, arbitrarily set here at 32, by the
duration value that is read from the DATA statement. The note's
volume is set by using the volume value that is read directly from
the DATA statement.
After four passes (once for each audio channel), the FOR.. .NEXT
loop ends, and the Loop: loop repeats, running the FOR., .NEXT loop
again and again until it encounters the - l's read from the DATA
statements. When it does, the program goes to KBTime:, and a
short FOR.. .NEXT loop there kills a little time before the program
ends so the List window doesn't appear too soon. If the list win
dow appears while the music is playing, it makes the notes falter
The note data in the DATA statements are organized so you have
four notes in each DATA line, one for each voice, in voice order 0,1,
2, and 3. Each note has four valuespitch, octave, duration, and
volume. The pitch is an integer from 0 to 11 that corresponds to a
pitch name; A, F, Eb, etc.. as discussed earlier in the section on
pitch arrays. The octave is an integer from 0 to 9 corresponding to
the octave subscript that usually foDows a pitch name.
The duration is a value corresponding to the length of note you
want played: 1 for a whole note, 2 for a half note, 4 for a quarter
note, 8 for an eighth note, 16 for a sixteenth note, etc. These values
don't set a specific length of time by themselves: They are used by
the SOUND statement to divide a number (in this example 32) that
sets the duration of a whole note. By changing this number, you
actually change the speed of the music, because all the duration
values in the DATA statements are divided into this number to
determine each note's length. For example, change the 32 in the
SOUND statement to 64 and run the program again, and you'll hear
the flourish played at half the previous speed. If you change it to
16, you'll hear it played twice as fast.
The last value for each note is volume, which sets the volume in
the SOUND statement.
Each DATA statement contains four notes, one for each voice.
Within each DATA statement, each note's data is separated from the
next note's data by a space, so you can easily distinguish the four
notes on each line. Voice 0 is the group immediately following the
word DATA on each line. Note that the duration value for voice 0's
data on each line is 16, which indicates sixteenth notes. Voices 1, 2,
and 3 all play quarter notes (as indicated by the 4 for their duration
values), and only require the first three DATA statements
237
to hold their note data. Because voice 0 has more individual notes
than the other three voices, the values in the remaining DATA
statements for the other voices become 0, 0, 16, 0, effectively
making a rest that's a sixteenth note in length to hold a place for
those voices so voice 0 can continue to read its data. (If you specify
a duration of 0, the program will try to use the value to divide with,
and you'll get a division-by-zero error.)
At the end of the DATA axe four - l's to signify the end of the
score. You have to have four - l's because the program reads data
in chunks of four.
If you use this system of READ and DATA statements to store
notes, you can create new and longer scores just by using different
data in the DATA statements. If you precede the program with
WAVE statements to change the timbre of the different audio
channels, you can give each voice its own unique timbre to play
the notes. Experiment, and have fun!
GENERATING SPEECH
The Amiga's system software includes libraries and devices that

generate speech using the same hardware and much of the same
software routines that the Amiga uses to create music and sound
effects: It speaks words using waveforms created from waveform
tables, and plays the waveforms through the same four internal
audio channels. You don't have to define waveforms and use exotic
SOUND statements, because Amiga BASIC provides two powerful
tools, the TRANSLATES*) function and the SAY statement, that you
can use to take direct advantage of the Amiga's built-in speech-
generation capabilities. These provide you with a simple yet
powerful means of adding speech to a program.
SAY is the Amiga BASIC statement that instructs the Amiga to
speak and tells it what to say. SAY requires all the words you want
it to speak to be spelled out phonetically, using a special system of
phoneme codes described in Appendix H of the Amiga BASIC man
ual. If you don't want to spell out everything phonetically, you can
use the TRANSLATE$() function, which takes a string of English
text and translates it into the phoneme codes needed by the SAY
statement.
SECTION 3: SOUNDS
238
THE TRANSLATE$() FUNCTION
The TRANSLATES!) function translates English words into a

string of phoneme codes for use by the SAY statement. The
TRANSLATES*) function uses this format:
TRANSLATEt("text at ring")
The text string can be any string of characters that's legal to use
in Amiga BASIC, or a string variable representing the text to be
spoken. A text string must be specified using quotation marks
within parentheses; a string variable requires only parentheses.
Since TRANSLATES)) is a function, it doesn't do anything by
itself. The string of phoneme codes it returns should be assigned to
a string variable, used directly with the SAY statement or printed
out using a PRINT statement. Using TRANSLATES!) directly with
SAY is very convenient. For example,
SAY TRANSLATES I " I speak English very well, thank you.")
speaks the sentence shown in quotes.

To see the phoneme code that TRANSLATES!) returns, you can
use the function with PRINT. For example,
PRINT TRANSLATESf"I speak English very well, thank you.")
prints out the phoneme code that SAY used in the last example:
AY SPIY4K IY3NXGLIHSH VEH1RIY WEH4L, THAE4NXK YUW.
The string is returned in capital letters because the SAY state

ment requires phonetic spelling in capital letters. TRANSLATES*)
returns a capitalized string of phonetic spelling that SAY can use,
so don't worry about capitalization if you use TRANSLATES!)
within a SAY statement.
If you print out an English sentence as phonemes, you can go
in and alter it slightly to your satisfaction, and then use it directly
with SAY to fine-tune pronunciation and inflection. (See Appendix
H of the Amiga BASIC manual.) For example, you might want to de-
emphasize the word "thank" near the end of the sentence. To do
so, use a PRINT statement with the TRANSLATES!) function to print
out the phoneme string, then type the string into a SAY statement,
deleting the 4 in THAE4NXK. This will accent the word by removing
its inflection value. A word of caution: If the changes you make to
translated strings of text do not conform to the guidelines specified
in Appendix H of the Amiga BASIC manual, you might get an error
message, or the string may not be spoken.
239
USING PUNCTUATION
When you use English strings with TRANSLATESQ, you can use
punctuation marks to alter the inflection of the spoken text. They
affect speech inflection as follows:
Period: You should use a period at the end of every sentence.

It makes the voice pitch drop to indicate the end of the sentence.
For example, try:
SAY TRANSLATES("This is the end.")
Question mark: A question mark at the end of a sentence

works just like a periodit makes the pitch drop. For example,
SAY TRANSLATE$("Thi5 is the end'")
sounds the same as the last statement.
Comma: A comma between words raises the final pitch of

the word it follows and puts a pause between the two words. A
comma at the end of a sentence will make it rise in pitch like a
question, and should be used in place of a question mark for
a question. For example, try:
SAY TRANSLATE$("Well, should I stop now,")
Parentheses: Putting parentheses around a phrase will

separate the phrase from the rest of the sentence with a lift in
pitch and a small wait at each end of the phrase. For example,
listen to:
SAY TRANSLATES("I think (I really do) that I should stop now.
Dashes: Connecting words with dashes will cause those

words to be spoken with much less inflection than words
separated by spaces. For example, try:
SAY TRANSLATE$("I'm so tired I'm-losing-my-inf1ection" }
ALTERNATE SPELLINGS FOR CORRECT PRONUNCIATION

On occasion, the English language gets the better of
TRANSLATESf) and some strange pronunciations come out of the
SAY statement. This is particularly true of names and English
words that use foreign pronunciations. Of course, you can always
SECTION 3: SOUNDS
240
create the words with the phoneme codes, but you might find it
easier to try some creative misspelling with the TRANSLATE${)
function instead.
For example, TRANSLATE$() has trouble with the name Michael,
which it pronounces more like "Mitch ay ell." A simple misspelling
will correct the pronunciation. Try both of these SAY statements to
hear the difference:
SAY TRANSLATE$("Michael")
SAY TRANSLATEM'Tiykul")
A little experimentation will help you understand just how

TRANSLATES*) pronounces English so you can get around its
occasional limitations. All in all, though, you should be impressed
with what the function can do. Any function which correctly
pronounces the "o" in "women" is certainly worthy of respect.
THE SAY STATEMENT
You use the SAY statement to tell the Amiga what to say and
how to say it. SAY uses this format:
SAY phoneme code string, specification array name
The phoneme code string is a string of capital letters and numbers

which spells out words phonetically using the phoneme codes
described in Appendix H of the Amiga BASIC manual, which is the
same format the TRANSLATES*) function uses to return a phonetic
string. The specification array name is optional; it gives the name
of an integer array that stores nine different values to specify how
SAY will speak. If no specification array name is given, the SAY
statement will speak the phoneme code string using the default
male voice.
PHONEME CODES
English is a tricky language to spell and pronounce. The same
letter in two different words can be pronounced two different ways,
as you can hear by listening to the "c" in "cycle" and the "c" in
"call." To accurately tell SAY what you want it to pronounce, you
must break up the words into separate sounds, called phonemes,
and use the Amiga's phoneme codes to spell out each phoneme.
The easiest way to do this is to let the TRANSLATES*) function do
the work for you. However, since TRANSLATES!) doesn't always
interpret words correctly and its pronunciation rules are limited
241
to the English language, you may want to use phonetic spellings in
place of the TRANSLATES*) function to make SAY speak with the
greatest possible accuracy.
Appendix H of the Amiga BASIC manual goes into great detail
about how to spell with phoneme codes. Although you can use the
TRANSLATES;) function to create the phoneme codes for you, taking
time to learn the codes yourself will be worth it if you want SAY to
speak with the greatest possible accuracy. You can use the pho
neme codes to specify precise accents, pauses, and emphasis you
want to put in a sentence, or to make SAY speak in a foreign lan
guage. For example, the following statement says "Wie gent es
Ihnen?", German for "How are you?":
SAY "VIY2 GEY7T IX2S IY3NIXN."
THE SPECIFICATION ARRAY

If you don't want to use the default voice that SAY speaks
with, you can change the quality of SAY's speech by setting nine
different speech aspects. Instead of including a long list of nine
specifications at the end of the SAY statement, you would store
the specifications in a short array that SAY reads when you give
it the array name. The array must be an integer array (indicated by
a % symbol at the end of the variable name), and it has to have 9
elements. The specification values are stored in elements 0 through
8, and control the pitch, inflection, speaking rate, volume, and other
aspects of speech. The elements are:
Element number Speech aspect controlled
0 Base pitch of the voice

1 Inflection choice
2 Speaking rate
3 Voice-gender choice
4 Sampling frequency
5 Volume
6 Channel-assignment choice
7 Synchronous-speech choice
8 Multiple-SAY choice
Setting the base pitch

Element number 0 of the array is an integer from 65 to 320 that
gives the base frequency in cps of the voice's pitch. The default
value is 110, which is an A2. When SAY speaks, it usually adds in
flection to the words, so the base pitch is only a central pitch.
Inflection moves the pitch up and down around the central pitch.
SECTION 3: SOUNDS
242
Choosing inflection or monotone
Element number 1 of the array is either a 0 or a 1, and is used
to specify speech with inflection, or monotone speech without
inflection. The default is 0, speech with inflection. A 1 specifies
monotone speech.
You'll probably want to use inflection most of the time to add life
to the Amiga's utterances. If you want SAY to keep a steady base
pitch, then you can use monotone. Monotone also does a great old-
fashioned robot imitation.
Setting the speaking rate

Element number 2 of the array is an integer from 40 to 400 that
specifies the rate in words per minute that SAY uses to speak. The
default rate is 150 words per minute, a normal speaking speed. A
rate of 400 is great for reciting tongue twisters; pushing the rate
down below 100 will produce a torturous drawl.
Choosing the voice gender

Element number 3 of the array chooses the gender of SAY's
speech. It's either a 0 or a 1. The default, 0, chooses a male voice,
and 1 chooses a female voice. When you change the gender, you
change the way SAY forms its phonemes, and so change the
characteristic sound of its speech to sound more like the vocal
chambers of either a man or a woman- The male voice is designed
to work best with the default base pitch, 110 cps. If you choose a
female voice, you should also change the base pitch to 220 cps or
higher, an octave jump up, since most women speak about an
octave higher than men.
Setting the sampling frequency

Element number 4 specifies the sampling frequency of SAY's
voice in cycles per second. The frequency can be any integer in the
range 5000 to 28000. The default frequency is 22000. The sampling
frequency sets the rate at which the Amiga plays back the wave
form table used to create a speaking voice. You might think of it as
the audio equivalent of graphics resolution. In general, the higher
the frequency, the smoother the voice (although a setting too high
will produce a "squeaky" voice), and the lower the frequency, the
rougher and more gravelly the voice.
Sampling frequency and base pitch are interlinked. As you may
recall from Chapter 7, any time you speed up the rate you use to
play back a waveform table, you increase the pitch of the sound
coming from that table. Similarly as you increase the vocal
sampling frequency, the pitch goes up. As you decrease it, the
pitch goes down. Before you change the sampling frequency to
change the character of SAY's voice, you should first find the
243
general voice quality you want by using the default pitch of 22000
and changing the other voice attributes. Once you have the voice
quality, reset the base pitch to find the new pitch you want.
Setting the volume

Element number 5 sets the volume of SAY. It can be any whole
integer from 0 to 64. 0 is no volume (silence). 64 is full volume, and
values between 0 and 64 set intermediate volumes. The default
volume is 64.
Choosing the channel assignment

Element number 6 of the array gives you 12 different choices for
the audio channel or channels on which youd like SAY to speak.
You specify the channels by using an integer from 0 to 11 to
designate one of the following channel assignments:
0 Channel 0
1 Channel 1
2 Channel 2
3 Channel 3
4 Channels 0 and 1
5 Channels 0 and 2
6 Channels 3 and 1
7 Channels 3 and 2
8 Any available channel that comes out of the left
audio port
9 Any available channel that comes out of the right
audio port
10 Any available pair of channels that come out of both
the right and left audio ports (the default)
11 Any available single channel
Choices 0 to 3 work just like the channel assignment in the

SOUND statement. Choices 4 to 7 are pairs of channels that use
both the left and right audio ports so you can hear the voice from
both ports. Choices 8 and 9 let you specify the left or right audio
port, but lets BASIC choose which channel to use. This is very
useful if you're using SAY while the BEEP or SOUND statements are
also producing sounds over the audio channels, because SAY can
use whatever channel is left over to speak.
Choice 10, the default channel-assign merit choice, specifies
any pair of channels that are not being used by other sound state
ments, and that use both the left and right audio ports. In other
words, SAY will use any of the channel pairs listed in choices 4
through 7. Finally, choice 11 specifies any available channel not
being used by other sound statements. It's probably the safest
SECTION 3: SOUNDS
244
channel assignment choice to make, since it's always more likely
that a single audio channel will be available than it is that a left-
right pair of audio channels will be open for use. However, if you
use choice 11 and you have the Amiga hooked up to a stereo
system with two speakers, you won't be able to predict which
speaker the voice will come out of.
Choosing synchronous or asynchronous speech

Element number 7 of the array is either 0 or 1. The default, 0,
specifies synchronous speech. A 1 specifies asynchronous speech.
If you choose synchronous speech, BASIC will wait until each
SAY statement is finished speaking before it moves on to the next
statement. If you choose asynchronous speech, BASIC executes
a SAY statement and starts it speaking, then executes the next
statement immediately while SAY finishes speaking on its own.
Asynchronous speech speeds up a program because the
program can work on other statements at the same time as it
speaks. However, other sound-producing statements (like SOUND
and BEEP) that follow an asynchronous SAY statement can foul
up SAY's speech by starting before SAY is finished speaking.
Synchronous speech keeps conflicts like that from happening.
Choosing multiple SAY options

Element number 8, the last element of the array, specifies the
way Amiga BASIC will execute multiple SAY statements if they use
asynchronous speech. This element has no effect if the SAY state
ments use synchronous speech (that is, if element 7 is set to zero).
There are three choices:
Value Meaning
0 If BASIC encounters a second SAY statement before the

first is finished speaking, it will wait until the first SAY
statement is finished speaking before it starts the second
SAY statement. Zero is the default mode.

first is finished speaking, it stops all speech entirely so
the first statement is cut off in the middle of speech and
the second statement doesn't speak at all.

first is finished speaking, it stops the first statement in
the middie of its speech and starts the second statement's
speech immediately.
The purpose of these choices is to avoid garbling by preventing

more than one voice from speaking at the same time.
245
SAY STATEMENT EXAMPLES
It's simple to use a specification array to change the quality
of SAY's speech- You don't need to dimension the array since it's
less than 11 elements long, and you can use a READ statement in
a FOR.. .NEXT loop to read the values from a DATA statement for
each element. For example, the following short program sets the
specifications for the SAY statement to speak in a rapid female
voice. It stores them in the array voice%, and uses it in a SAY
statement that speaks the tongue twister "Peter Piper picked a
peck of pickled peppers":
FOR i = 0 TD 8
READ voiceX( i )
NEXT l
xt - "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers."
SAY TRANSLATES(x*}, voice!
DATA 250, 0, 4 0 0, 1, 24000, G4, 10, 0, 0
When you run the program, you may notice that it pauses briefly
to load something from the BASIC disk. This is because BASIC
needs to open the speech device when it first encounters a SAY
statement in a program. Any SAY statements that follow will be
spoken immediatelyBASIC needs to open the speech device only
once each time the program is run.
If you want to play around with different voice qualities, you can
change the values in the DATA statement, then run the program
once again.
The next program reads four different voice-specification arrays
and uses the values to create four different SAY voices. The first
voice is a female voice, created by raising the base pitch of the
default voice from 110 to 220 cps. The second voice is a laconic-
sounding robot voice created by lowering the base pitch to 70 cps,
choosing monotone, and setting the speech rate to a slow 80 words
per minute. The third voice has a nasal sound created by raising
the base pitch to 320 cps and lowering the sampling frequency
to 10000 cps. The last voice is very rich and deep, but fast; the
base pitch is dropped to 65, the speech rate is sped up to 350
words per minute, and the sampling frequency is raised to 28000.
SECTION 3; SOUNDS
246
FDR 1 = 0 TO 7
READ voice1X(i), voice2X(i), voice3X(i), voiceil(i)
NEXT i
DATA 220, 70, 320, G5
DATA 0, 1, 0, 0
DATA 150, 80, 110, 350
DATA 1, 0, 0, 1
DATA 22200, 22200, 10000, 28000
DATA 64, 64, 64, 64
DATA 10, 10, 10, 10
DATA 1 , 1 , 1 , 1
SAY TRANSLATES("This is voice 1 speaking to you now."), voiceiX
PRINT "This is voice 1 speaking to you now."
SAY TRANSLATES("This Is voice 2 speaking to you now."), voice2X
PRINT "Thi5 is voice 2 speaking to you now."
SAY TRANSLATES("Thi s is voice 3 speaking to you now."), voice3%
SAY TRANSLATES("This is voice 4 speaking to you now."), voice4%
FOR x = 1 TD 3000: NEXT x
When you run the program, you'll notice that even though the
PRINT statements follow the SAY statement they describe, they print
on the screen at the same time the SAY statement starts speaking.
That's because all four voices are in asynchronous speech and
BASIC proceeds immediately to the PRINT statement as soon as the
SAY statement starts speaking. The FOR.. .NEXT loop at the end of
the program is a timing loop to prevent the List window from
appearing before voice 4 is finished speaking.
If you change the second to the last DATA statement to a line
of four zeros, the PRINT statement will wait until each voice is
finished speaking, because the SAY statements now use synchro
nous speech. (If you switch to synchronous speech, the timing loop
at the end of the program is no longer necessary.)
Now that you've had a chance to try out the Amiga BASIC
sound statements, you can use them for your own crea
tions. BEEP and SOUND will create sound effects and notes,
WAVE will create timbres, and SAY and TRANSLATES!) will
control the Amiga's speech. You can synchronize your
SOUND creations with SOUND WAIT and SOUND RESUME. By
tying all of these statements together, you can create
music, distinctive voices, and other audio effects that will
really enhance your programs. And if you enjoy the
dynamic quality of your sonic creations, you'll also enjoy
reading about the next section's subject: animation.
247
TION
This section introduces

you to animation on
Animation
the Amiga. Chapter 10
teaches you the funda
mental concepts of
computer animation.
Chapter 11 shows you
how to use Deluxe
Video to create your
video animation,
luces you to
othei hardv and
software prc
will help bring your"
animation ideas to life.
The two chapters that
end the section (Chap
ters 12 and 13) discuss
the Amiga BASIC ani
mation commands, and
show you how to com
bine them to animate
figures in your BASIC
programs.
CHAPTER TEN
A COMPUTER
ANIMATION PRIMER
Today's world abounds with animation, thanks to the
ubiquitous medium of television. From classic hand-drawn
cartoons like Bugs Bunny to computer-generated animation
hawking blue jeans, we see images that previously existed
only in the animator's imagination. Animation gives life to
scenes that are impossible to photograph in the real world.
Traditional animation has never been easy to create. It
takes a lot of skill and effort on the part of animators to
create the huge number of drawings necessary for even a
few minutes of animation, and careful work by technicians
to transfer those drawings to film. Animation has seldom
been the product of a single personit's usually created
by teams of artists sharing arduous tasks to create a
finished product.
Computers are changing animation dramatically. With
their power to create images simply and quickly on a mon
itor screen, computers can take over much of the tedious
work animators usually do, drawing backgrounds and
moving objects with uncanny consistency and accuracy.
Since computers can store images in memory, the anima
tion need never be transferred to filmit can be stored on
disk for later playback. Most important, a computer can be
an animation tool powerful enough to allow an individual
to turn a personal vision into animated scenes of surpris
ing complexity. Using your Amiga, that individual
animation artist can be you.
FUNDAMENTALS OF ANIMATION
If you've never done any animation before, you should know

some of the fundamentals so that you can understand animation's
different elements and how to handle each of them. In the previous
primers of this book, you learned about light and color for graphics
and about the qualities of sound for music. Now, in this chapter,
you'll learn about motion and perspective, two very important
aspects of animation.
THE ILLUSION OF MOTION

Animated motion is an illusion. What you see as a continuous
movement of objects on a screen is in reality a rapid succession of
still images. Film animation presents 25 images per second to the
SECTION 4: ANIMATION
252
eye; video animation can present 60 images per second. Why don't
you see each of those images individually, iike a very speedy slide
show? There are two answers: continuity and presentation speed.
Your mind is more likely to accept a series of still images as
one single image moving over time if the images are all similar,
especially if there is little change in position between images. This
establishes continuity from image to image. Figure 10-1 shows six
images of a bird flapping its wings. If you see the six images in
rapid succession, centered in the same spot, your mind will prob
ably interpret them as one bird flapping its wings. This is true even
if the images are shown in slow succession. The human mind likes
to bind together separate elements into a meaningful whole.
Figure 10-1.
Six successive images of

a bird flapping its wings.
A rapid presentation speed helps maintain the illusion of motion.

If you show the six images in Figure 10-1 at 6 images per second,
you'll see a single bird flapping its wings, but the motion will look
jerky. In the back of your mind, you'll know that the motion is
actually many individual images. If you show the same six images
at 12 images per second (so the bird flaps its wings twice as fast),
you won't notice nearly as much jerkiness. The motion looks
smoother and more continuous. Once you reach a speed of 25
images per second (the standard speed of movie film), your eyes
and mind are tricked into seeing smooth motion. Of course, if there
is no continuity from image to image, 25 images per second won't
sustain the illusion of motion. For example, if you showed the slides
of your summer vacation at 25 images per second, you would see a
meaningless jumble. Each slide would have a totally different
content, so there would be no continuity.
A Computer Animation Pnmei
253
If it takes at least 25 different images (usually called frames) per
second of animated motion, you can see that even a one-mmute
animated commercial needs 1500 different frames. That's a lot of
work to do if you have to create each frame by hand. It's even a lot
of work if you create the frames using a computer. Fortunately,
there are shortcuts to use so that you won't have to draw 1500
individual frames.
One such shortcut is a common animation technique that
involves creating each new image in a sequence of images by
copying the preceding image and altering only the parts of the
image that are in motion. Because the stationary elements don't
change at all from frame to frame, you can separate the moving
elements from the stationary elements and concentrate on redraw
ing just the moving elements.
The simplest way to separate moving elements from stationary
elements is to separate them into two parts: the background and
the moving objects. The background can be something like a wall,
a mountain, or a forest that doesn't move, but provides a backdrop
for the action of moving objects. Moving objects can be people,
animals, airplanes, or anything else you want to animate.
The background
A good background sets the locale and mood for animation, like
the scenery in live theater does for a play. Since you might only
have to draw the background once for an animated sequence, you
can afford to spend a lot of time to make it rich in detail and a
useful backdrop for the animated objects that will move around in
front of it.
Although a background usually remains stationary during an
animated sequence, there are times when it too will move, usually
to indicate a change in viewpoint. For example, put your hand in
front of your face and look at your fingers. Notice the background
behind your hand. Now turn your head and hand slowly to the right
as you continue to watch your fingers. Notice that the background
seems to be moving to the left in relationship to your fingers. By
moving the background slowly to the left or right, up or down, or
diagonally, you can make it appear that the viewpoint is changing
in your animation. In traditional animation, this action is called
panning. In computer animation, it's called scrolling.
The background can also change if the viewpoint moves closer
or further from the background. The background gets larger as the
viewpoint moves toward it, smaller as the viewpoint moves away
from it. By steadily enlarging the background, you can make it
appear that the viewer is moving forward. Likewise, by steadily
shrinking the background, you can make it appear that the viewer
is moving backward.
254
Traditional animators create the background by painting it and
putting it on an animation stand, a flat surface similar to a drafting
table with an attached movie camera set up to photograph one
frame of movie film at a time. The animator can use the animation
stand to move the background by moving the painting slightly from
frame to frame (panning the background), or by moving the camera
closer or farther away from the background from frame to frame
(moving the viewpoint in or out). This is a time-consuming pro
cess, because each sequence of background movement requires
the animator to move either the background painting or the camera
just the right amount, expose one frame of film, move the painting
or camera again, and repeat the process again and again.
Moving the background is much easier for the computer anima
tor; he can create the background painting using the computer's
drawing software, and then store it in the computer's memory.
Once the drawing is in memory, the animator simply instructs the
computer to pan the background by scrolling the image in the
desired direction, or to move the viewpoint in and out by shrinking
or enlarging the image through manipulation of the picture data.
Moving objects
Once the background is in place, the animator creates objects to
move around in front of it. Each of these moving objects can have
two basic kinds of motion: external and internal. External motion is
the movement of the entire object in relation to the background.
Internal motion is the movement of the parts of an object. Consider
the example of a man walking across a street. His external motion
is his entire body crossing the street. His internal motion is his legs
striding back and forth, his arms swinging, his torso bobbing up
and down, and a grin passing over his face.
In traditional animation, the animator creates moving objects by
drawing or painting them on clear sheets of acetate (called gels).
These gels are placed on top of the background painting on the
animation stand for filming. Since the acetate allows the back
ground to show through wherever an object isn't painted, the movie
camera photographs the gels and the background together as a
frame that looks like a single completed drawing, even though there
may be several layers of gels on top of the background painting.
To create external motion alone, the traditional animator simply
moves a single gel small distances over the background as he
shoots successive frames. A computer animator uses a similar
process: He first draws the object, and then instructs the com
puter to display it in front of the background. He then gives the
computer instructions telling it where to move the object. Both tra
ditional and computerized methods for producing external motion
A Computer Animation Primer
255
are fairly simple. Unfortunately, external motion without internal
motion is usually very unconvincing, and looks frozen and cheap. If
you try to animate a man crossing the street without moving his
arms and legs, it looks like a lifeless paper doll being pushed across
the screen. External motion alone might work for something as
simple as a rock dropping from a cliff, but even a failing rock would
look much more realistic if it tumbled and turned as it fell.
Creating internal motion often takes more work than any other
part of animation, which is only fair when you consider that it adds
the most life to animation. To create internal motion, the animator
has to draw a series of successive images to show how the object
changes. The six drawings of a bird flapping its wings (used earlier
in the chapter) are an example of creating internal motion through
successive images. To show half a minute of this bird flying, you
would have to create hundreds of successive wing-flapping, head-
twisting, and body-turning images to capture all the variety of
motions that a real bird makes in flight-
To create internal motion, a traditional animator draws a
sequence of gels, each showing a slightly different position of a
moving object. By photographing the gels in succession on top of
the background painting, the animator creates animation with
internal motion. A computer animator can use a similar method; he
creates a series of images in computer memory that the computer
displays in sequence on the screen. Neither the traditional nor com
puterized method for creating internal motion is easyeach
requires a lot of time drawing images.
You can take advantage of the cyclic nature of movement to
make the task of creating internal motion much simpler. For exam
ple, birds flap their wings down, then up, then down, then up, and
so on as they fly. If you ignore some of the minor variations that oc
cur from wingflap to wingflap, you can draw a sequence of images
that animate just one wingflap, and then repeat that sequence
over and over for each flap of the bird's wingsa process called
cycling. Instead of creating hundreds of images for a half minute
of bird flight, you can create just a few images that you can repeat
over and over again as the bird flies. Cycling a sequence isn't as
convincing as drawing all the images individually (as you can see
in cheap Saturday morning cartoons, which use a lot of cycling),
but it does give you internal motion with a fraction of the work it
would normally take.
Once you create a series of images to internally animate an
object, it's important to make sure that internal motion matches
external motion. For example, if you create a man who walks
256
swinging both arms and legs and don't give him some external
motion (or at least move the background behind him), he'll look like
he's slipping on ice, not getting anywhere. Likewise, if the man has
too much external motion, he'll look like he's wearing seven-league
boots, taking giant strides with each small step.
ADDING PERSPECTIVE
Animation is ultimately displayed on a two-dimensional medium
such as a computer monitor or a movie screen. You can use
different animation and drawing techniques to transcend the two
dimensions of the screen and portray your animated images in any
of three different perspectives: two dimensions (2-D), three dimen
sions (3-D), and two and a half dimensions (2&-D). Each perspective
has its advantages and disadvantages.
2-D perspective
A two-dimensional perspective assumes there is no depth to
the picture, and that the objects in motion move horizontally and
vertically, but not toward and away from the viewer. 2-D perspective
usually works best for animation that is a symbolic representation
of reality (not attempting to look real).
A good example of 2-D animation is cars moving on a map of
city streets, as seen below in Figure 10-2. Since cars don't as a rule
fly away from the streets, the cars on the map won't move toward
or away from the viewer. Their motion is strictly horizontal, vertical,
or diagonal-all two-dimensional motion.
Figure 10-2.
Simple 2-D animation:
cars on a map.
257
One important property of 2-D animation is that a moving object
can't pass in front of or behind other moving objects (at least not if
you keep it realistic). Since the objects are confined to a two-
dimensional plane, they collide when they meet. For example, two
cars in the map example can't pass through each other One has to
go around the other, or they will crash.
2-D animation may not look realistic, but it has some advantages
over other perspectives. First, it's usually much simpler to create
than 2/2-D and 3-D animation because you don't have to keep track
of an object's depth, only of its location on a single two-dimensional
plane. Second, a simple symbolic representation can show the
important elements of the animated sequence with much more
clarity If the streets in the map example were drawn as they would
actually look from the air with hills and valleys and black pavement
roads, it would be a much more realistic animation, but it would
also be much harder to see what was happening as the cars moved
around the streets.
3-D perspective
A three-dimensional perspective adds depth and realism to the
image on the screen. Objects in 3-D animation can move toward
and away from the viewer as well as horizontally and vertically
Since the third dimension, depth, is portrayed on a two-
dimensional screen, it's strictly an illusion sustained by different
animation techniques.
The most familiar technique used to create a 3-D perspective is
the artificial horizon, an invisible horizontal line used by animators
as a point of reference. If you're not familiar with artificial horizons,
consider a real horizon. When you look far out over the ocean, the
line where the sea meets the sky is the horizon. Any boats floating
in the water close to you appear far below the horizon. As they sail
away from you, they seem to rise closer and closer to the horizon as
they get smaller and smaller and then finally disappear. Likewise,
any airplanes flying from directly above you to far out over the
ocean at first appear quite a distance above the horizon, then drop
closer and closer to the horizon and get smaller and smaller until
they disappear.
Figure 10-3 shows two ships sailing toward the horizon. Since
the one in the lower left corner is larger and further from the
horizon than the one in the middle, it appears closer to the viewer.
258
Figure 10-3.
Two ships sailing toward

the horizon.
An artificial horizon works the same way. It usually runs across

the center of the screen, and may not be visible, since it might be
covered by buildings, trees, mountains, or other objects. Even if it's
invisible, you can use its location as a reference to make moving
objects appear to move toward or away from the viewer. To make
an object appear to move away from the viewer, you shrink it as
you move it from its original position to the artificial horizon. You
can shrink the object so much that it disappears, making it seem
like it has moved too far away to see. (The point at which it
disappears from sight is called the vanishing point.) To make an
object appear to move toward the viewer, you enlarge it and move
it out from the artificial horizon. The faster you shrink or enlarge the
object, the faster it seems to move away from or toward the viewer.
You can combine shrinking and enlarging with vertical and hori
zontal motion to make an object seem to move in any direction
consistent with the three-dimensional perspective of the animation.
To enhance the feeling of depth, you can also change the color of
an object as it moves toward and away from the viewer. Objects at
a distance are usually dimmer and paler than objects close up.
Dimming a moving object as it recedes will add to the feeling of
depth. Another aid to developing a 3-D perspective is to diminish
internal motion as an object moves away from the viewer. For
example, the arm motions of a waving woman standing close to
you are very noticeable. If the same waving woman was across a
football field from you, the motion of her arms wouldn't be nearly
as noticeable.
259
One of the easiest ways to establish the depth location of a
moving object is to pass it in front of or behind another object on
screen. If the object passes in front of another object, as it does in
Figure 10-4, it's obviously closer to the viewer than the second
object. If it passes behind another object, it must be further away
from the viewer. If two objects collide and don't pass over or behind
each other, then both objects are the same distance away from
the viewer.
Figure 10-4.
Two overlapping figures.

The figure on top ap
pears closer than the
figure underneath.
When you use 3-D perspective techniques, it's important to keep

them consistent with each other. If you make an object recede in
the distance by shrinking it and then you pass it in front of an
object that seems to be close to the viewer, it will look very con
fusing, and the illusion of three dimensions can be shattered. You
must keep track of the relative location of all moving objects to en
sure that they pass over or behind the other objects as they would
if you were viewing real objects in a three-dimensional space.
The advantages of a 3-D perspective are obviousit's very
realistic, and it draws the viewer into the picture in a way other
perspectives can't. The disadvantage is also obviousit takes a
lot more effort, even if the computer is doing the dirty work!
2Y2-D perspective
A two-and-a-half-dimensional perspective is a compromise
between the simple 2-D perspective and the complex but more
realistic 3-D perspective. Objects in 2J/2-D animation are restricted
to horizontal and vertical motion in a single plane as they are in 2-D
animation, but there are several planes in the picture to create an
illusion of depth.
260
To get a good idea of how 2/2-D perspective works, think of a
theater stage with an underwater mountain painted on a flat
backdrop. This is one plane of the image the audience sees from
the theater seats. In front of the backdrop is an aquarium, full of
fish, wide enough to stretch to both sides of the theater and tall
enough to extend to the top of the proscenium, but only four inches
from front to back. This is a second plane of images. In front of the
aquarium is a second aquarium just like the first one, also full of
fish, which creates the third plane of images. In front of both
aquariums and the backdrop is a facade of coral that rises halfway
up the height of the aquariums. This is the fourth plane of images.
Figure 10-5 shows you how these planes in the fictitious theater
are set up.
Fish Painted Figure 10-5.

tanks backdrop
View
direction
2WD perspective demon
Coral
strated using theater
props and two absurdly

large fish tanks.
Front view Side view
When you look at everything on stage from the audience, you see
coral in front. Behind the coral, you see fish swimming back and
forth, some passing m front of other fish. Behind the fish you see an
underwater mountain. Even though there are only four planes of
depth, you can see it as a full-depth picture.
If you were the fish director, you would never have to worry
about the fish in the back tank upstaging the fish in the front tank,
because they can only move horizontally and vertically, and can't
swim out of their tank into the tank in front of them. Likewise, as a
2V2-D animator, you don't have to worry about objects moving
261
toward or away from the viewer. They stay in their plane of motion,
passing behind objects in planes before them, passing m front of
objects in planes behind them, and colliding with objects in the
same plane.
2&-D animation is simpler than 3-D animation. You don't have as
much to worry about in terms of changing the size, color, and
amount of internal motion of an object, and keeping track of which
object passes in front of another object becomes much easier.
INTERACTIVE ANIMATION
In traditional animation, the animator draws the elements of

each image, assembles them on the animation stand, and records
each increment of movement on individual frames of film to be
played back later in sequence. When you play back the film, you
see just what was recorded; the animation doesn't change from
playback to playback unless the film wears out or breaks.
Computer animation has an advantage over traditional anima
tion: The computer draws each image and places it on the screen
according to your instructions. As a result, you can quickly change
the way the animation proceeds, using a controller like a mouse or
a joystick to tell the computer to change the way the objects move,
what part of the background you see, and other aspects of the ani
mation. This is called interactive animation, since it immediately
responds to your wishes, and you can respond to its moving
images on the screen.
The most common example of interactive animation is the
pointer on your Amiga screen. Every time you roll the mouse, the
Amiga moves the pointer to a new location on the screen. You can
respond to the new location by clicking a mouse button if the
pointer rests on an icon, or by rolling the mouse again to move the
pointer to the location you want.
Another common example of interactive animation is a video
game, which is often a showcase for a computers animation ability.
When you press the joystick button to blow up an invading egg
plant, the computer responds to the button push with an anima
ted sequence of the eggplant turning into an exploding fireball.
Game players often respond to the animation with increased
pulse, sweat on the forehead, and a tendency to push the joystick
to its breaking limit.
Interactive animation is one of the computer's greatest artistic
capabilities. It draws the viewer into the action more completely
than any form of passive animation.
262
ANIMATION ON THE AMIGA
The Amiga was designed specifically to have superior animation

powers. The custom chips can move and manipulate large blocks
of graphics data with great speed, a necessary requirement for
computer animation. The system software includes libraries and
devices that take full advantage of the hardware graphics abilities
and make them easily available to programmers. As you work with
different animation applications and develop your own Amiga
BASIC programs, you'll have a chance to use many of the special
features described here.
THE PLAYFIELD
You're probably already familiar with the concept of a playfield
on the Amiga, but not with its name. The playfield is the graphic
background for any animation. It's usuaUy motionless, and provides
a backdrop for the objects that move over it. When you create still
pictures with graphics applications like Graphicraft or Deluxe
Paint, you're actually drawing figures in a playfield. The cursor or
the paintbrush that you move around over the playfield is a moving
object, animated by the graphics program and the movements of
the mouse.
You'll recall from Chapter 2 that the Amiga can scroll the con
tents of a window (a playfield) horizontally and vertically. This is a
useful tool for advanced programmers to pan the background in
animation. For example, as a background for animation, a pro
grammer can create a panoramic view of a mountain scene that
is much wider than the window it appears in, as seen below in
Figure 10-6. To move the viewpoint to the left, he can scroD the
entire playfield to the right. To move the viewpoint right, he can
scroll the playfield left.
Figure 10-6.
A panoramic background
shows through an Amiga
window. Scrolling left
and right moves the
viewpoint.
Window viewing area
263
You'll also recall from Chapter 2 that the Amiga can lay one
screen over another with transparent areas in the front screen so
the back screen shows through- This gives advanced programmers
two different playfields to work with, which is a very handy tool for
2'/2-D animation. Like the underwater mountain backdrop in the
2J6-D animation example, the back playfield provides a backdrop for
moving objects in front of it. The front playfield can act as a
foreground, much like the coral facade. A programmer can pass
moving objects behind the front playfield, but the objects wiH move
around in front of the back playfield. When a programmer scrolls
both playfields, he can scroll the front playfield faster than the back
playfield to make the background look further in the distance and
make the whole scene look more realistic.
GELS
The Amiga allows you to create moving objects in Amiga BASIC
or in application programs like Deluxe Video or Aegis Animator.
These objects, called geis, can be moved over the playfield. Gel is
an Amiga animation term that stands for Graphic ELement, and
shouldn't be confused with the gels used in traditional animation.
There are two kinds of Amiga gels: sprites and bobs. Sprites are
usually small, simple, and fast, and take very little computing work
to move around the playfield. Bobs can be much larger than sprites
and have more color and detail, but they take more memory to store
and much more computing work to move, so they are sometimes
slower than sprites. If you understand how the Amiga creates
sprites and bobs, you'll understand why they have different
characteristics.
Sprites
A sprite is a small object placed directly on the playfield by
the Denise chip. It's like a flashlight pointer used on a projected
picture: As the flashlight moves up, down, and around, the beam
of light moves around without changing the image underneath at
all. Like the flashlight beam, a sprite isn't part of the picture drawn
on the playfield; as it moves around the screen, the sprite passes
over the playfield without changing it.
Sprites are common animation devices on home computers such
as the Atari 800 and the Commodore 64. What sets the Amiga's
sprites apart are their number and their coloring. You can create up
to eight sprites on the Amiga, and each of those sprites can be
colored with up to four different colors. One of those colors is
"transparent"; you can see the background through transparent
parts of sprites. To create a sprite with more colors, advanced
264
programmers can program the Amiga to combine two sprites to
create a new sprite that is the same size as a single sprite, but can
use sixteen colors.
Sprites are easy to create, and they take very little memory to
store. They're quite useful as fast-flying objects in video games,
and also work well as pointers. The pointer in the Amiga
Workbench is a familiar example of a sprite.
Bobs
Unlike a sprite, which moves over the playfield without changing
it, a bob is a gel drawn directly into the playfield. To get an idea of
how a bob moves around the screen, think of a traditional animator
creating a sequence of frames by drawing on a single sheet of
paper. He draws a swamp pond with a duck floating on the right
side of the pond, then snaps a picture of it. To make the duck swim
to the left side of the pond, the animator erases the entire duck,
then redraws it a fraction of an inch to the left of its original
position. He fills in the swamp pond to the right where the duck
used to be. He repeats this for each frame of the animation until
the duck reaches the left side of the pond.
A bob on the playfield is like the duck in the swamp picture.
The blitter (the fast-drawing section of the Agnus custom chip) is
the animator. It draws, erases, and redraws the bob and the
background underneath the bob with lightning speed to make the
bob move smoothly across the playfield.
Bobs can use up to 32 colors at once, and can be drawn in any
size as long as they fit in the playfield. Since bobs are drawn and
redrawn to move around the playfield, they take more computing
time to move than sprites, and are a little more difficult to create.
Nevertheless, bobs, once created, can usually move as quickly and
smoothly as sprites if they're not too large.
Bobs are useful to create animated objects of complex shape and
color. A good use of a bob would be as a large object like a car that
travels across the playfield. A sprite wouldn't be able to create an
object as large or with as much detail. A familiar example of a bob
is a custom brush you pick up from the mam picture in Deluxe
Paint. When you select a section of your picture, make it a brush,
and paint with it, you're actually using a bob.
CREATING INTERNAL MOTION

It's very easy for a programmer to move a gel around a playfield
using only external motion. He just tells the Amiga what speed he
wants the gel to move, and in what direction it should move. To
give the gel internal motion to make it more lifelike, he has two
choices; sequenced drawing or component motion.
265
Sequenced drawing
Sequenced drawing is a method of animation available to
advanced programmers using the animation routines in the
Amiga's system software, or to dedicated Deluxe Video users. It
uses the technique shown earlier in the chapter used to animate
the wings of a bird: The programmer draws a sequence of indi
vidual pictures of different stages of internal motion. He then plays
back the sequence to create motion on the screen.
To use sequenced drawing with a gel, the programmer creates a
sequence of shapes and colors, and then uses the Amiga's system
software to assign the sequence to a single gel. The Amiga then
cycles through the drawing sequence to create an internally
animated gel. The programmer can move the sequenced drawing
gel around the playfield while it's running through a sequence of
drawings just by specifying the distance, speed, and direction for
it to move.
As an example, to animate a flying bird, a programmer would
produce a cycle of bird shapes that make the bird flap its wings
once. He would then assign the cycle of shapes to a gel. The
Amiga cycles through those shapes to create a bird flapping its
wings. To make the bird fly forward over the playfield, the pro
grammer tells the Amiga how far, in what direction, and how fast
to move the gel so the external motion of the bird will match the
internal motion of the wing flaps.
Component motion
An advanced programmer can also use component motion, a
second method of creating internal motion in a figure. The
programmer creates a set of small gels and groups them together
using the animation routines in the Amiga's system software to
create a single animated figure. Each individual gel has its own
external motion (with no internal motion), yet moves correctly with
the other gels in the figure to make the set of gels look like one
figure with internal motion.
As an example, consider the animated sequence of a man
walking across the street. The man has a separate gel for each of
his legs, torso, head, and arms. Each of these gels has its own
motion: The arms and legs swing backward and forward, the head
bobs up and down, and so on. When all these actions combine, the
figure of the man goes through walking motions. This is the figure's
internal motion. Adding external motion to the figure is done by
moving all the gels together in a single direction while they are still
going through their walking motion to let the man actually make
some progress in walking.
266
The Amiga's system software takes care of the tricky process of
calculating the motion of each individual gel when the entire figure
moves in one direction or another. All the programmer has to do is
create the individual component gels, define a set of motions for
each gel, and then give the Amiga a direction and speed for the
external motion of the entire figure.
For short animated sequences, component motion might be
harder to create than sequenced drawing. However, it's very useful
for long and varied animated sequences, and for interactive ani
mation where the individual gels can change their motion accord
ing to the input of the viewer or changing instructions from a
program.
GEL PRIORITY AND COLLISIONS

When animating any type of gel on the Amiga, questions arise
when two gels collide. Does one gel pass over the other? Do they
bounce off each other? Or do they crash and bum? The Amiga
uses animation routines in its system software to keep track of
each gel's location m the playfield. If any gel touches another gel, or
touches the boundaries of the playfield, the system software sends
out a signal that identifies which gel collided with another gel or
with which boundary the gel collided. The programmer can pro
gram the gels to respond: to move away, bend, disappear, explode,
pass on as before, or whatever else he has in mind.
In 3-D animation, if one gel passes over another when two gels
meet, it's important to make sure the gel that appears closer to the
viewer passes over the gel that's further from the viewer. When the
programmer creates a gel, he assigns it a priority number. The
Amiga's system software keeps track of each gel's priority number.
A gel with a higher priority number always passes over a gel with
a lower priority number. When the programmer wants to change
the depth of a gel, he can change the gel's priority number so that
it will pass before and behind the right gels to maintain the illu
sion of depth.
INTERACTIVE ANIMATION IDEAS FOR THE AMIGA

Interactive animation is easy to create on the Amiga, primarily
because of all the different ports the Amiga has to read information
from the outside world. The most useful ports are the two controller
ports on the right side of the console. You can plug in mice, joy
sticks, music keyboards, touch tablets, and a variety of other con
trollers that the Amiga will read. The system software will pass on
the controUer readings to the animation program so it can change
its actions accordingly.
267
Some intriguing possibilities for interactive animation use fancy
hardware. For example, if you add an audio sampler to the Amiga
(see Chapter 8 for information on audio samplers) that sends
information to an animation program about sounds in the room
around the Amiga, the animation program can change the actions
of the figures on the screen to match the sounds in the room
around them. Likewise, if you have a digital thermometer that
sends temperature information to the Amiga through the serial
port, an animation program might be able to create different
animation for cold weather, cool weather, warm weather, and
hot weather.
As you can see, animation on the Amiga is a creative

field with a lot of possibilities. To keep the myriad of
animation elements under control, you can use an applica
tion program like Deluxe Video or Aegis Animator, or you
can jump into Amiga BASIC to create your own animation
programs. In the next three chapters, you will learn how
to do both.
268
CHAPTER ELEVEN
AMIGA ANIMATION
TOOLS
Animation is rarely a spontaneous activity; the typical
animator doesn't have a brilliant idea one evening, work a
few hours to bring an inspiration to reality, and then
perform the work for an adoring public the next day. You,
however, can come closer to spontaneity using some of the
animation tools available for the Amiga. They make ani
mation a much simpler process.
In this chapter, you'll learn about the available Amiga
animation tools. In the first half of the chapter, you'll learn
how to use advanced techniques with Deluxe Video, an
animation program, to create animated videos with pol
ished results. You'll discover tricks to put more animation
on the screen, get smoother results, and spend less time
creating a video. You'll also learn how to record your
finished videos on videocassette.
In the second half of this chapter, you will read about
Aegis Animator, another animation program for the Amiga.
You'll also read about the variety of hardware you can add
to the Amiga to enhance its video-production capabilities.
MASTERING DELUXE VIDEO
Deluxe Video is an animation program from Electronic Arts that

lets you create and play back your own animation sequences
{called videos) with accompanying music and sounds. To make
animation smooth and uncomplicated, Deluxe Video uses two
overlapping playfields for its animation: a background playfield and
a foreground playfield. You use the background playfield to create
stationary background pictures and the foreground playfield as an
area to move objects around the screen. Since the foreground
playfield is transparent except where it contains moving objects,
the two playfields blend together on your screen so you see the
background and foreground together as a single picture, similar to
the 2K2-D animation example you read about in the last chapter.
Deluxe Video uses three different types of animation. The most
common is blitter animation, where bobs are moved around the
foreground playfield by the Amiga's blitter, which constantly draws,
erases, and redraws them. The second type is sequential anima
tion, where Deluxe Video cycles through a series of individual
images you created earlier with Deluxe Paint. The third type of
animation is color cycling, the same kind of animation that Deluxe
Paint achieves by cycling the color registers.
270
Deluxe Video is not a simple program; it has to coordinate
motion, size changes, file loading {from disk}, disappearances,
music, sound effects, and many other elements. To use Deluxe
Video effectively, you have to compose a video much like a music
composer composes music, carefully thinking through the appear
ance and sequence of each video effect, using the techniques you
learn as you gain experience creating scripts. The following sec
tions explain some advanced techniques and tips you can use to
create your own Deluxe Video scripts.
USING DELUXE PAINT TO CREATE BACKGROUNDS

AND MATCHING OBJECTS
Two of the basic elements you work with in Deluxe Video are
pictures that fill the background of your video, and objects that
move in the foreground. To create your own pictures and objects,
you need to use the graphics-application program Deluxe Paint,
because Deluxe Video doesn't actually create custom objects or
pictures from scratch; it just loads them from disk and then
manipulates them.
To create a background picture on disk for Deluxe Video to use,
you simply save a low-resolution Deluxe Paint picture to disk. To
create an object for Deluxe Video to use in the foreground, you
draw it on a low-resolution Deluxe Paint screen, select it as a cus
tom brush, and then save the brush to disk. Since Deluxe Paint's
custom brushes are bobs (as you may recall from Chapter 10),
and Deluxe Video uses bobs for its moving objects, Deluxe Video
has no trouble loading the brush from disk to use as an object.
When you create objects and backgrounds with Deluxe Paint for
a single video, you want them to match in size and style, and you
want to make sure that the colors work well together. If you create
each object and picture in different Deluxe Paint sessions, you
might be disappointed with their consistency when they all come
together in your video. You can use some special techniques with
Deluxe Paint that will ensure that your pictures and objects work
well together in Deluxe Video, and will also save you time.
Maintaining color consistency

The key to keeping colors consistent is to realize how many
colors you can use in each of the two playfields that Deluxe Video
uses. Pictures appear in the background playfield. They can use up
to eight colors, since the Deluxe Video background playfield is
three bit planes deep. Objects appear in the foreground playfield.
The foreground playfield also uses three bit planes fa different set of
three bit planes than the background playfield uses), so you might
Amiga Animation Tools
271
think that the objects it contains can also use up to eight colors.
Instead, they are limited to seven colors, because the eighth
colorthe background coloris transparent so the background
playfield can show through. And, since the background and fore
ground playfields can each use different sets of colors, by com
bining playfields you have a total of 15 colors that you ci:\\ use
in a video.
When you create objects and pictures for a single video script,
you can set the Deluxe Paint colors so that you use only one set of
eight colors for the background and another set of seven colors for
the foreground. Since Deluxe Paint has a spare screen, you can
work on the background in one screen, and on the objects for the
foreground in the other. Follow the instructions below to create a
picture and several objects to use in Deluxe Video.
First, set up Deluxe Paint:
1. Load Deluxe Paint by typing the command dpaint lo 4. This

loads a version of Deluxe Paint that uses four bit planes and
gives you 16 colors to work with. When the Deluxe Paint
screen appears, you'll see two columns of eight colors at the
bottom of the control strip. You can use the colors in the left
column for the background picture and the colors in the
right column for the objects.
2. Open the palette so you can change the available colors to

your liking.
3. Set the eight colors in the left column to colors you want to
use in your background picture.
4. Set the first seven colors in the right column as the colors
you want to use in the objects. Since you'll use the eighth
object color as the background color, it will be transparent in
Deluxe Video, so it doesn't matter what color you choose for
the last color in the right column. As you choose the object
colors, try to make them different from, but complementary
to, the background colors you set in the left column. This will
make your video look much more colorful when you put your
objects and the picture together.
5. Close the palette by clicking the OK button.
272
Now that Deluxe Paint is set for work, you can create a
background picture:
1. Paint your background picture using the colors in the left

column of the palette.
2. Choose Save As ... from the Picture menu to save your

background picture to disk. You'll want to save the picture
directly on your Deluxe Video Parts disk, so:
3. Insert the Deluxe Video Parts disk in a disk drive.
4. When the Save requester appears, click in the Drawer box, and
use the DELETE key to delete the contents of the box. If the
Parts disk is in an external drive, first type the name of the
drive (such as dfl:), then type Pictures. To enter the
background picture name, click in the File box, and type the
name. Click the Save button to save your background picture
in the Pictures drawer on your Deluxe Video Parts disk.
Once you've created a background picture, you can create

objects to go with it:
1. Press j to jump to Deluxe Paints spare screen.
2. Use the right mouse button to select the bottom color in the
right column of the palette as the background color, then
select the CLR button to fill the screen with this color. Since
the background color will be transparent on the screen in
Deluxe Video, it doesn't really matter what color it is on the
palette in Deluxe Paint.
3. Draw your objects in this screen using the first seven colors
in the right column of the palette.
4. To check the size and color of any object against the

background picture, use the brush-selection tool to select the
object as a brush, then switch screens back to the back
ground picture. Use the mouse to move the object around
the background picture to see how it looks in motion. When
you're finished, switch back to the objects screen.
5. When you're satisfied with the object, use the brush-

selection tool to select it again as a brush.
273
6. Choose the Save As ... command from the Brush menu to start
to save the object.
7. Repeat the steps you used to save the background picture,

except save the brush in the Objects drawer of your Deluxe
Video Parts disk.
If you have other background pictures and objects to create, you

can create a new set of colors in the palette, and can use the same
techniques to create new background pictures with their own sets
of objects. When you're finished creating and saving pictures and
objects, quit Deluxe Paint and run the Deluxe Video Maker
program. To insert your pictures and objects in Deluxe Video,
follow these instructions:
1. Open the scene where you want to insert your background

picture.
2. Add a Picture track in the scene for your background picture.

When a requester appears asking you which picture to load,
select the name of the background picture you created
earlier.
3. A Palette More Than 8 Colors requester will appear. (Although

you used only eight colors in your background picture,
there were a total of 16 colors in the palette, and Deluxe
Video knows it.) Select the Best palette option. Deluxe Video
will load your background picture, using your original colors.
4. Click the Select button in the requester to finish adding the

Picture track.
5. To load the objects that go with the background picture, add

an Object track for each object. When the requester appears
for each track, select the object you created earlier, select the
Best palette option to load them using your original colors,
then click Select.
By using the techniques presented here, you can keep your

pictures and objects consistent, and save yourself the trouble of
trying to set a color palette in Deluxe Video to match objects and
pictures that were created using entirely different palettes.
USING COLOR-CYCLE ANIMATION IN THE

BACKGROUND PICTURE
Most of Deluxe Video's animation takes place in the foreground
piayfieid, with moving objects set in motion by Move To effect boxes
in the script. This type of motion is blitter animation because it
moves the object bobs within the foreground piayfieid. Blitter
274
animation uses quite a bit of processor time and memory, and
makes the motion on screen jerkier as you add more objects. If you
want to use a different method of animation that requires very little
memory and processor time, and also lets you add animation to the
background playfield, you can use color-cycle animation.
You've probably played with color cycling using Deluxe Paint. By
choosing a range of colors as a cycle range, painting a succession
of those colors on the screen, and then cycling the colors, you can
create the illusion of motion. You can also use color cycling in
Deluxe Video by choosing which colors will cycle in either the
foreground or background piayfields. You can use Deluxe Paint to
create background pictures or objects to use with Deluxe Video's
color-cycling effect.
The following example uses color cycling. It creates a back
ground picture depicting a carnival shooting arcade, with a series
of target ducks moving on a conveyor belt at the back of the arcade
tent. To create this background picture, first load Deluxe Paint and
set the palette:
1. Type dpaint lo 4 to load Deluxe Paint with four bit planes so

you get 16 colors in the palette.
2. Press p to open the palette so you can set the colors.
3. The eight colors in the left column are for use in the
background picture. Leave the first three colors black, white,
and red, but change the fourth to brown. You'll use these four
colors to create the carnival tent and a wooden counter top.
4. You'll use the last four background-picture colors to create the

ducks. Set the first of the four colors to yellow Leave the next
three colors in their default colors for nowthey'll be
changed later.
5. Set the last four background-picture colors (the one you just
changed to yellow, and the three below it} as color cycle
number one (Cl). (See Chapter 3 for more information if you
don't know how to set a color cycle.)
6. Close the palette by selecting OK.
Now you can create the carnival tent and ducks:
1. Use the first four colors in the left column to draw a carnival
tent with countertop and a runway strip for the target ducks
as you see in Figure 11-1 on the next page. The brown strip
in the middle of the picture is the duck runway.
275
Figure 11-1.
A carnival tent with a

duck runway strip.
5 SHOTS WIN A
WORTHLESS
PRIZEt
Mill HIM
Duck runway
Countertop
2. Switch to the spare screen and draw a single duck in solid

yellow like the one you see in Figure 11-2.
Figure 11-2.
A duck to be selected
as a brush.
276
3. Use the brush-selection tool to select the duck as a brush,
and switch back to the carnival picture.
4. Choose Cycle from the Mode menu so the brush will cycle
through the colors in the cycle range you set earlier in
the palette.
5. Select the first of the four cycle colors in the control strip
(yellow) as the foreground color. This makes the brush-color
cycle start from this color.
6. Lay down a string of ducks nose to tail, left to right, across

the duck runway, clicking the mouse button once for each
duck. At each click, the duck should change colors because
the brush is color cycling. The end result should look like
Figure 11-3.
Figure 11-3.
A chain of ducks drawn

using colors in the cycle
range laid down on the
duck runway.
WIN A
WORTHLESS
PRIZE*
If you cycle the colors by pressing the TAB key at this point, the
ducks will look like they're standing still and changing colors. To
make them look like they're moving, you have to change the palette
once again:
1. Open the palette.
2. Copy the brown that you used to paint the duck runway to
the last three colors of the cycle range (colors six, seven,
and eight).
277
3. Select OK to close the palette.
4. Press the TAB key to test the color cycling. You should see a
well-spaced chain of yellow ducks moving across the runway.
5. Save your painting to the Pictures drawer of your Deluxe Video

Parts disk.
At this point, if you want to create some foreground objects to go

with your carnival-tent background such as popcorn, cheap prizes,
and BB rifle barrels, you should switch to the spare screen to create
and save them as objects in the Objects drawer of the Deluxe Video
Parts disk. When you're finished, quit Deluxe Paint, run Deluxe
Video, and put your cycling picture in a script:
1. Use the techniques described previously to put your carnival

picture in a scene using a Picture track.
2. Make the picture appear by placing a Load effect in the

Picture track.
3. Add a Background track to the scene.
4. Add a CycleClr effect to the Background track.
5. When the Cycle Colors requester appears, make sure colors 4.

5, 6, and 7 are on and colors 0, 1, 2, and 3 are turned off
(a color is on if its number is highlighted).
6. Select the OK button to close the requester.
7. Drag the first arrow of the CycleClr effect to the time in the
script where you want the ducks to start moving, and drag
the second arrow of the effect to the time where you want
the ducks to stop moving. Figure 11-4 shows a scene script
with the carnival picture loaded and the color cycling set to
last for eighteen seconds.
8. Play the scene to check the speed of the ducks. If they're

moving too fast, you can double-click on the top of the
CycleClr effect to open it again and set the Speed slider to get
the speed you're looking for.
278
Figure 11-4.
A scene script set up for

l:H 4:24 8:48 13:12 17:M color-cycle animation on
the background playfield.
- carnival-
CyelcClr
C hckirri-
r
Once your moving-duck background has been created, you can

go on to add moving objects on a Foreground track in front of it, and
sound effects on a Sound track, to create an interesting video.
You can use this color-cycling technique in many ways to make
your backgrounds more interesting. You might use it to create
flowing rivers, waving trees and grass, moving crowds of people,
or any other repetitive background movements. It all runs very
smoothly behind whatever action you create with moving objects
in the foreground playfield.
CREATING SEQUENCED DRAWINGS FOR ANIMATION

Sequential animation is the most sophisticated animation you
can create with Deluxe Video. It's also the most time-consuming
animation to produce. To create the set of sequenced drawings
Deluxe Video needs for sequential animation, you have to work
with three different programs: Deluxe Paint to draw your sequence,
the Deluxe Video Framer to combine the sequenced drawings into
an object, and the Deluxe Video Maker to make the object appear
in a video and to run it through its sequence of drawings. The
following set of instructions will help you create a sequentially-
animated object with a minimum of work.
279
The first thing you need to do is draw your image sequence
using Deluxe Paint:
1. Run Deluxe Paint using the command dpaint lo 3 to get a

3-bit-plane version of Deluxe Paint that uses eight colors.
2. Set the last seven colors in the palette to the colors you want
to use for your images. You'll use the first color as the
background color. It doesn't matter what color you set it to,
because Deluxe Video recognizes it as the background color,
and makes it transparent in the video.
3. Draw your first image in the upper left corner of the screen,
leaving room for the other images in the sequence in the rest
of the screen. Be sure to draw your image a little below the
title bar If you draw it too high, you won't be able to frame it
later with the Deluxe Video Framer: It will be too high on the
screen for the frame to slide up to.
4. Draw a box around the image, as you see in the example in

Figure 11-5.
Figure 11-5.
A boxed image ready to
be duplicated to create a
sequence of images.
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5. Use the brush-selection tool to select the box and its
contents as a brush.
6. Lay down copies of the box next to each other, as you see in
Figure 11-6. Make sure the borders of the boxes don't overlap:
Wherever they touch there should be a double-width line. If
you run out of room in one row, start a new row going from
left to right under the last row.
Figure 11-6.
A sequence of images
ready to be altered.
7. Alter the images in the boxes so you have a sequence of

images that progress just the way you read: from left to right,
top to bottom. Remember as you alter the images that the
box around the image represents the still frame you'll see the
sequenced images through. Use it as a frame of reference to
keep the image from moving too much from one frame to the
next. Figure 11-7 (on the next page) shows a sequence of
changing images.
8. When you're finished drawing, use the Save As... command

from the Picture menu to save the whole sequence as a
picture in the Pictures drawer of the Parts disk.
281
Figure 11-7.
A sequence of changing
images.
Once you've saved the sequence as a picture, you can quit

Deluxe Paint and run the Deluxe Video Framer to turn your picture
into an animated sequence of images:
1. Run the Framer.
2. Load the picture you just created.
3. Choose Change Frame... from the Project menu.
4. When the Frame Sequence requester appears, set the number

in the left half of the requester to match the number of
frames across, and set the number in the right half of the
requester to match the number of rows of framing in your
picture. In this example, the numbers would be 4 and 2,
respectively. Select OK to exit the requester.
5. Drag the upper left corner of the frame grid that appears until
it lines up with the upper left corner of your set of boxes.
6. Drag the lower right corner of the box labeled "a" down and
to the right to size the frame grid to exactly cover the borders
of your boxes.
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7. The images will have letter names in the upper left corner of
each section of the frame grid like the images in Figure 11-8.
Note what happens in each framewhen you use the
Deluxe Video Maker later, it lets you change the sequence
order by typing in the frame letters in the desired order.
Figure 11-8.
A sequence of images
framed and lettered in

the Deluxe Video Framer.
8. Choose Make Object From Frame from the Project menu to

combine the images into an animation sequence.
9. Drag the single frame remaining on the screen to the spot on

the screen where you want to see it, then choose Animate
from the Project menu to see the framer run through your
sequence of images.
10. Choose the Save... command from the Object menu to save
your sequence as an object in the Objects drawer of your Parts
disk. Note that Framer will add a -1 extension to your old
filename for youjust click Save to save the sequence under
this name.
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Once you've set up your animation sequence with the Framer,
you can quit the Framer and use the Deluxe Video Maker program,
where you can put your animation sequence in a script:
1. Run the Deluxe Video Maker.
2. Add an Object track to a scene.
3. When the Object requester appears, choose the name of the

animated sequence you just created.
4. Add an Appear effect to the Object track.
5. When the Appear Where? requester appears, position the

square where you want the object to appear on the screen
and select OK to leave the requester.
6. Add an AnimSeqn effect to the Object track after the Appear

effect.
7. When the Animate Sequence requester appears, it shows the

letter names of each picture in your animation sequence.
Look at the notes you took when you used the Framer to
remember the order that you want the pictures to appear in,
then enter the order using letter names in the Sequence box,
first deleting what's already there if necessary. If you want
Deluxe Video to go through several cycles of the sequence
you just entered, move the Repetitions number up to the
number of cycles you want, then select OK to leave the
requester.
8. Drag the left arrow of the AnimSeqn event to the time in the
script where you want your animated sequence to start
running, and drag the right arrow to where you want the
sequence to stop running. Deluxe Video will run through the
number of images in the sequence you specified over the
time period set for the effect, so if you stretch the start and
stop points of the effect out over a long period of time, the
animated sequence will step through the images slowly. If
you limit the effect to a short period of time, the sequence
will cycle through the images quickly.
9. Play the scene to see your sequential animation. If you have

the AnimSeqn effect stretched out to the time you want and
the images are cycling too slow or too fast, then you can
open the AnimSeqn effect again and add or subtract from the
number of images in the sequence, or increase or decrease
the number of repetitions.
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You can use sequential animation to very good effect. Keep in
mind that while the object is cycling through its sequence of
images, you can move it with a Move To effect. If you create a
walking or flying object, you can coordinate its external motion
(set with the Move To effect) with its internal motion (set with the
AnimSeqn effect) to make it look as if it's really walking or flying.
SYNCHRONIZING EFFECTS
As you use Deluxe Video, you'll find it very important to
synchronize effects in your script so sounds will accompany the
right actions, so motion can start at the same time as an object
appears, and so other effects that should happen together do
happen together One easy way to synchronize effects is to start
them together by lining up the left arrows of the effect boxes. You
can read the script time of the arrow at the top of the script as you
drag it along the track.
There are times when you may want to set the beginning of one
effect to occur at a specific point in the middle of another effect.
For example, you may want to add a "pop" sound in the middle of
an animated sequence that shows a pop bottle opening. How do
you find the correct point in the sequence without resorting to
tedious trial and error? You can use the remote control to locate the
exact time of the pop bottle opening.
Whenever you run a video or scene with the remote control
showing on the screen, the bottom of the remote control displays
the script time, running it forward or backward as you play
different parts of the script in different directions. To find the script
time of a specific effect in a scene, you can stop the scene from
playing and then read the time at the bottom of the remote control.
To make it easy to find, you can play the scene to approximately
where the effect occurs, and then play the scene using the single-
step mode.
To use single-step mode, select the button in the remote control
with the three dots in it, then use either the forward-play or
reverse-play button to go through the script one step at a time.
Whenever you find the exact point in the scene that you're looking
for, note the time at the bottom of the remote control When you go
back to the script, you can set a new effect at exactly the time you
noted by positioning its left arrow, using the time reading that
appears at the top of the script.
When you use this timing method, be sure that the Realtime
option isn't selected in the Options menu. If it's selected, the time
display at the bottom of the remote control will keep incrementing
during disk-loading operations as well as during video effects, so
the readout won't have anything to do with the time location of
effects in the script.
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MAKING YOUR SCRIPTS READABLE
As you create video scripts, the tracks and effects begin to add
up to an on-screen jumble, especially if you have many effects
running at the same time on one track. If you want to revise your
script, it can be very hard to see what you're doingsome effect
boxes may completely cover other effect boxes, effect-box arrows
may be crammed into one tiny space so you can't see where the
effects start and end, and some effect boxes might be placed so far
away from their arrows that you can't follow the connecting lines.
To avoid these problems, follow these rules of thumb to make
your script easy to read and revise:
1. Keep related tracks next to each other. This makes it easy

to synchronize effects between the tracks, and also makes
it easy to follow the related tracks through the script. For
example, if you want two birds to fly across the screen
accompanied by bird squawks, you use three tracks to
gether: two Object tracks (one for each bird} and a Sound
track. Keep these three tracks together in the script so you
can see and synchronize the effects between them.
2. If you have several effects occurring simultaneously in a

single track, layer the effects so each type of effect has its
own height above or below the central track line. This lets
you follow the course of each type of effect, and see how
they interact with the other types. For example, in an Object
track you might have several different AnimSeqn effects
occurring at the same time as Move To effects and Size effects.
To keep everything clear, you can put all the AnimSeqn effect
boxes very close to the track line. One level above the
AnimSeqn effect boxes, you can put the Move To effect boxes,
and one level above that you can put the Size effect boxes as
shown in Figure 11-9.
3. If effects are crowded close on each other's heels, making

them very hard to read, stretch out the time scale of your
script using the Time Scale... command in the Options menu.
This gives you much more space to fit your effects into so
you don't have to overlap boxes, and so you can see where
the effect arrows are located. For example, if you have a
scene script set to show 22 seconds at a time in the scene-
script window and the effects are crowding each other on
individual tracks, then you can set the script to show seven
seconds at a time, stretching out the effects in the track to
over three times as far apart as they were previously.
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Figure 11-9.
A single Object track

with effects grouped by
type on separate levels to
keep them readable.
RECORDING DELUXE VIDEO ANIMATION ON VIDEOTAPE

Once you've finished creating a video on Deluxe Video, you can
record it on videotape. It's very easy. All you have to do is connect
the Amiga to a videocassette recorder, start the VCR recording, and
then start the animation running. The following sections give you
the details you need.
Connecting the Amiga to a VCR

To connect the video output of the Amiga to the video input of
the VCR, you need a simple audio cable with a phono plug on each
end. Plug one end of the cable into the video port on the back of
the Amiga's console. The video port is the port farthest to the right
as you look at the back of the Amiga. Plug the other end of the
cable into the jack labeled "Video In" (or something similar) located
on the back or side of your VCR.
If you have sound in your animation, you should connect the
audio ports of the Amiga to the "Audio In" jack (or jacks) of your
VCR. If you have a stereo VCR, you connect the Amiga to the left
and right "Audio In" jacks of the VCR the same way you connect
the Amiga to a stereo cassette recorder. (See Chapter 8 for more
details.) If you have a monaural VCR, you connect the Amiga to the
VCR the same way you connect the Amiga to your monitor. (See
Introduction to Amiga in your user manual for more details.)
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Making the recording
Once the connections are made, you can start recording. To
capture all the video on tape without recording the process of your
loading and running the script, follow these instructions:
1. Run the Deluxe Video Maker and load whatever video you
want to record. Choose Play Video from the Project menu.
2. When the remote-control unit appears, stop the video and

select the reset (:0) button to set the video back to its start.
3. Click the single-step button on the remote control, then click

the play-forward button once to play and freeze the script at
its very beginning so the title bar at the top of the screen
disappears.
4. Click the single-step button a second time to turn off the

single-step mode, then select the back gadget on the remote
control to make it disappear.
5. Move the pointer off the bottom right corner of the screen so
that no part of it shows on screen.
6. Set the recording speed of your VCR to the highest possible

speed for the best video quality, then press the key on the
VCR that starts it recording.
7. Wait for a few seconds until the VCR's tape heads are up to
speed, then press the Amiga keyboard's right cursor key to
start the video playing.
8. At the end of the video, stop the VCR- You've just recorded
your video onto tape.
VIDEO RECORDING QUALITY

When you watch your video recording, don't expect the same
quality you see when you watch the original video on an RGB
monitor. Recording the video downgrades its quality because of
two processes: First the video signal is converted to a composite
video signal instead of an RGB signal so it can be fed to the VCR;
then the composite signal is recorded on videotape, which further
deteriorates the quality There's nothing you can do about having
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to use a composite video signalmost VCRs will only accept a
composite video signal. You can improve the quality of the tape
recording, though, by buying a high-quality home VCR and using a
good-quality recording tape. If you buy a Beta VCR, try to get a
SuperBeta recorder, which has substantially better video quality
than other types of Beta recorders. If you buy a VHS VCR, you
should consider an HQ VHS, which also has video quality much
improved over other VHS VCRs.
ADDITIONAL ANIMATION SOFTWARE
Deluxe Video is not the only animation software you can buy for
your Amiga. Electronic Arts plans some further additions to Deluxe
Video, and Aegis Development has an animation program called
Aegis Animator.
AEGIS ANIMATOR
Aegis Animator, sold by Aegis Development, is a simple but
effective animation program. It's inexpensive, easy to use, and can
create some great three-dimensional animation using simple
abstract objects. Aegis Development bundles Aegis Animator
together with the Aegis Images graphics program, so you can
use pictures created in Aegis Images as backgrounds and objects
in Aegis Animator videos.
Aegis Animator uses a type of animation called metamorphic
animation for most of its effects. In metamorphic animation, the
Amiga doesn't calculate the motion of every bit in an object that it's
moving around the screen. Instead, it uses simple geometric
objects such as lines and polygons that it can define by setting a
series of points and connecting them with lines. The Amiga has to
calculate only the endpoints of an object as it moves it around the
screen instead of calculating the motion of every bit in each object.
For example, to keep track of a square, the Amiga has only to keep
track of the location of the four corner points. As Animator moves
these simple objects around, it calculates new positions for the
endpoints and then draws the rest of the object by connecting the
points and filling it in if it's a solid object.
The advantage of metamorphic animation is that it takes very
little calculation to manipulate objects on screen. Aegis Animator
makes good use of this advantage, and offers a variety of special
effects you can use on an object, such as moving it from one
location to another, changing its size, rotating it around three
289
different axes, and changing it from one shape to another. Another
advantage of metamorphic animation is that the motion of an
object is often much smoother than it is in blitter or sequenced
drawing animation, because of the reduced calculation time.
The disadvantage of metamorphic animation is that you have to
work with simple geometric shapes. This is no drawback if you're
working on abstract animation, but it's a distinct disadvantage if
you want to create objects like people, animals, and other
irregularly shaped items.
Animator offers you some alternatives to metamorphic anima
tion: You can use a 32-color picture created with Aegis Images,
Deluxe Paint, or another IFF standard graphics program as a
background to your animation. (Animator uses a single 5-bit-plane
playfield for animation instead of the two 3-bit-plane playfields
Deluxe Video uses, so it's possible to get 32 colors.) You can also
create individual objects with up to 32 different colors in a graphics
program, and Animator will use them in simple animation; it
moves them around the screen, but it won't rotate or size them or
change their shapes as it can with geometric objects.
Animator doesn't use a script the way Deluxe Video does.
Instead, it lets you create objects on the Animator screen, and then
move them around and control them with other effects. You record
each step of your motion and control effects, and Animator
remembers the whole sequence so it can play it back later. Once
you finish a sequence, you can create other sequences, and then tie
them all together in a special screen called the storyboard. This
makes it easier to create a short video than by using a script, but it
also makes it harder to edit a video and to synchronize many
effects at once.
Unlike Deluxe Video, Animator is strictly animationthere
is no sound, so you can't add sound effects or a musical score to
accompany your creations unless you run a music program simul
taneously. Also, Animator does not have commands for adding
text to your animation.
DELUXE VIDEO LIBRARY DISKS

Electronic Arts plans to follow Deluxe Video with Deluxe Video
library disks containing additional pictures, objects, sounds, and
scene generators that you can use with Deluxe Video. The contents
of the library disks will aD be related to give you the tools and parts
to easily create business presentations, for example, or to title
videotapes as another example. The scene generators will create
specialized scenes automatically for you. The library disks will
contain the work of professional artists and programmers to make
your work easier and better looking.
290
ANIMATION AND THE IFF STANDARD
Since animation has no set notation standard, and different
animation programs use entirely different techniques to create their
effects, there is no IFF standard for video scripts. This means that
you can't create a video on Deluxe Video and then play it using the
Aegis Animator or vice versa. The individual parts of the videos
use the IFF standard, though. Pictures, sounds, and music can be
transferred from one animation program to another that uses the
IFF standard and can make use of them.
ADDITIONAL ANIMATION HARDWARE
You can greatly increase the animation power of your Amiga

by adding extra hardware. Some of the hardware will make your
animation programs run faster and help store longer sequences
of animation than you can with the Amiga alone. Other hardware
will add external sources of animation and help you blend the
Amiga's animation with external animation.
EXTERNAL RAM CARDS

Animation is an activity that takes a lot of memory. When you
consider that a simple video background can take up to 8K of RAM
to store, and one sampled sound can take over 30K of RAM, it's no
surprise that an Amiga with 512K of RAM can quickly fill up when
you create a script with many different backgrounds, dozens of
objects, and sampled sounds to match. To get around memory
limitations, programs like Deluxe Video store all the animation
elements they can in RAM, and keep the rest on a disk in the disk
drive. As you play a video, Deluxe Video loads the new elements
from the disk when they're needed and erases the old elements
from RAM. This is why there are pauses in the video as it plays
Deluxe Video has to take some time to load new animation
elements from disk.
You can add up to eight megabytes of additional RAM to the
Amiga, using the expansion connector on the side of the console to
help store your video elements. This additional memory is called
external memory to differentiate it from the 512K of RAM that the
Amiga can have internally. The Amiga must keep pictures, objects,
and sampled sounds that it works with in the internal memory,
since the custom chips that draw, animate, and play sounds have
direct access only to the internal memory. (The Amiga's internal
memory is sometimes called "chip memory" for this reason.)
Animation elements that the Amiga isn't using at the moment
can be stored in external RAM. Since the Amiga's 68000 processor
291
can directly read both internal and external memory, it can quickly
bring the animation elements into the chip memory when they're
needed without the delay that would be caused by loading them
from a floppy disk.
Several companies make external RAM cards that plug into the
Amiga's expansion port. Most of these cards contain two mega
bytes of RAM, memory enough to store more than the contents
of two floppy disks. Some of the RAM cards allow you to add
additional 2-megabyte RAM cards up to a total of 8 megabytes.
The 2-megabyte memory board sold by The Micro Forge is a typ
ical example of external memory you can add to your Amiga.
THE AMIGA 1300 GENLOCK BOARD

The Amiga 1300 Genlock board, sold by Commodore, lets you
mix the graphics and sound from your Amiga with the images and
sound coming from an outside source like a television set, a VCR, or
a laser disc player. It plugs into the RGB ports and audio ports of
the Amiga console, where it receives the video signal coming from
the RGB port and the audio signals coming from the audio ports.
The Genlock board has its own jacks that accept input from an
external video source and an external stereo audio source. It also
provides an RGB output for you to plug into your RGB monitor, a
composite video output to plug into a VCR for recording the images
on the monitor, and left and right audio output jacks to connect to
your monitor speakers or to an audio or video recorder.
By using a switch on the Genlock board, you can choose which
signal will come from the board's output ports. If you choose the
external signal, you'll see and hear whatever video and audio
sources you've connected to the external signal jacks. If you choose
the Amiga's signal, you see and hear just the graphics and sound
generated by the Amiga. If you choose both signals, then you see
and hear the external signals and the Amiga's signals mixed
together.
When you choose to mix the external signals and the Amiga's
signals together, the Genlock board puts the Amiga's images on
top of the external images. Wherever there is background color in
the Amiga's picture, the external picture shows through. The audio
signals are mixed together so you can hear both simultaneously
Consider an example: If you connect the output of a television
receiver with the input of the Genlock board and choose to mix
the signals with the Amiga's signals, when you run the Workbench
you will see the windows, icons, and gadgets of Workbench all
292
displayed on a moving background of the 5 o'clock news, or
whatever the television receiver is receiving. The TV background
replaces the normal blue background you see in Workbench. You
would also hear the audio portion of the 5 o'clock news on your
monitor speakers. If the Amiga beeps at you as you work, you'll
hear the beep mixed in with the news.
The Genlock board is very useful for titling videotapes, among
other things. If you connect one VCR to Genlock's input and a
second to the Genlock's composite-video output, you can play a
videotape on the first VCR, add overlaid graphics on the Amiga,
and record the two mixed together on the second VCR- When you
consider that the effects created using Deluxe Video or Aegis
Animator will work with Genlock, all you have to do is lay down
background color in your Amiga videos wherever you want the
videotaped images to show through. You can then have titles
scrolling over your own family videos.
LASER DISC PLAYERS

A laser disc player is one useful source of an external video
signal to use with a Genlock board. The laser disc player uses a
laser to read video signals embedded in the laser disc much like a
compact disc player uses a laser to read audio signals on a com
pact disc. You can't record images on a laser disc player like you
can on a VCR, but using one does have several advantages: It puts
out sharp, clear pictures and stereo high-fidelity sound, and it
provides a wide variety of special effects such as slow motion,
reverse motion, and freeze-frame; and even more interesting, you
can control the way it plays with your Amiga.
Pioneer Video makes most of the laser disc players sold in the
United States. The Pioneer CLD-900, an advanced model, plays both
laser discs and compact discs, so you can use it for audio or video.
It has the special-effect capabilities available in most laser disc
players: adjustable slow motion, fast forward and reverse (at three
times normal playing speed), forward and reverse scan (a high
speed fast forward and reverse), freeze-frame, and individual frame
search. The individual frame search is very powerful. Laser discs
produced in the CAV format (the format that laser disc players need
to use special effects) can store up to 54,000 individual frames, each
frame a full video picture. You can ask the laser player to jump to
and display any one of those frames.
The CLD-900 has an I/O port in the back that you can use to
connect a Pioneer IU-04 computer interface. The IU-04 connects to
the serial port of the Amiga, and acts as a computerized remote
control. The Amiga can send simple commands through its serial
port to control the laser disc player in any way you can with the
laser disc's own controls.
293
The Amiga can be used in combination with a laser disc player,
the IU-04 interface, and a Genlock board to create some interesting
educational programs. For example, you might start with an inter
esting laser disc like one of the Space Archive laser discs sold by
Video Vision Associates. Each Space Archive disc has filmed
sequences of moon landings, shuttle launches, and satellite mis
sions, as well as hundreds of still pictures, stored one per frame.
The Amiga can play the laser disc through the Genlock board on
the Amiga's monitor. While the disc plays, the Amiga can put up
captions on the screen, point out items of interest on the screen,
and even make comments in its synthesized voice. At any point in
the disc, the Amiga can use the IU-04 to freeze the action. It can
ask the viewer if he wants to jump to any other section of the disc,
or it might ask questions in a short quiz. It can then move on to
another disc section, depending on the user's input.
No existing software application works with a laser disc and
Genlock this way, but the hardware and the disc are available, and
you can use Amiga BASIC to create a program that can do just
what was described.
In this chapter, you've learned some techniques for using

Deluxe Video to create your own Amiga videos. You've also
taken a tour of some of the other animation hardware and
software available for the Amiga. If you're interested in
learning more about Amiga animation, read onthe next
two chapters describe the many Amiga BASIC animation
commands, and tell you quite a bit about how the Amiga
creates its animation.
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CHAPTER TWELVE
AMIGA BASIC
ANIMATION:
CREATING MOVING
OBJECTS
Amiga BASIC contains a wide variety of statements
and functions that allow you to move objects around your
monitor screen in different directions at varying speeds. It
can pass one object over another object, and make objects
disappear and reappear at your command. It keeps track of
every object on the screen, and checks to see if they have
collided with each other or with the edges of the window
they're moving in. Amiga BASIC provides you with the tools
you need to create interesting animation.
The first step in creating animation is to draw the ob
jects you want to animate with the Object Editor, a BASIC
program included on your Amiga BASIC disk. The Object
Editor can save the objects to disk for later use in your
BASIC programs. When you write a BASIC program, you can
use BASIC animation statements to bring the objects back
into memory from disk, put objects in the output window,
set the speeds of the objects, start the objects moving, stop
the objects, and remove them from the screen. You can also
include other statements that read the speeds and locations
of objects on the screen, and keep track of their collisions.
In this chapter you'll use the Object Editor program to
create objects, and you'll also try out some of the BASIC
animation statements that put objects on the screen and
move them around. In Chapter 13, you'll learn how to
control the objects' motion, how to make one object pass
over another, and how to control collisions to create
convincing animation.
USING THE OBJECT EDITOR
Your first task in creating animation with BASIC is to draw

objects with the Object Editor. If you look at the contents of the
Amiga BASIC disk, you should see a drawer labeled BasicDemos. In
that drawer are a variety of BASIC programs that demonstrate the
powers of Amiga BASIC. One of those programs is labeled ObjEdit:
This is the Object Editor.
To use the Object Editor, start it just as you would any other
BASIC program: Point to the icon and double-click, or choose Open
from the Project menu from within BASIC. Chapter 7 of the Amiga
BASIC manual, "Creating Animated Images," gives directions on
how to use the Object Editor. You should read that chapter to find
out how to select colors, how to use the drawing tools, and how to
save and recall objects from disk.
SECTION 4. ANIMATION
296
MODIFYING THE OBJECT EDITOR
The Object Editor on your Amiga BASIC disk was written to
work on a 256K Amiga, and is limited to creating objects just two
bit planes deep (a four-color limit) in a screen that uses mode 2
resolution. Since Amiga BASIC can use objects of all different
depths and resolutions, you should modify the Object Editor
program if you have a 512K Amiga so the Object Editor will create
objects of all different depths and resolutions. Fortunately, the pro
gram is easy to changeall you have to do is make some minor
modifications.
First, open the Object Editor. If its running, stop it and then
open the List window. Widen the List window so you can see the
full length of the program lines. If you scroll through the program,
you'll see that it's quite long, but divided up into short sections,
most of them starting with a label and ending with a blank line.
As you modify the Object Editor, you'll replace a few subsections
and alter others. To view a particular subsection, just select the
Output window and type list, followed by a space and the name of
the program section. The Last window will list the program starting
at the first line of that program section. You can then alter the
subsection or replace it entirely.
To modify the Object Editor, follow these instructions exactly:
1. Count the lines m the program listing from the beginning of

the program. Replace lines 30 to 38 (they start with scrn - -I
and end with WINDOW 1,(0,0)-(WinX,WinY),31,scrn) with
this new subsection:
SetScreen:
INPUT "Resolution mode (1-4)?", res

INPUT "Depth (mode 1: 1-5, mode 2 & 3: 1-4, mode 4: 1-3)?", depth
IF depth < 1 THEN depth = 1
IF res = 4 THEN
wide = 640: high = 100
IF depth > 3 THEN depth - 3
ELSEIF res = 3 THEN
wide = 320 high - 400
IF depth > 4 THEN depth
ELSEIF res - 2 THEN
wide - 610 high - 200
IF depth > 4 THEN depth
ELSE
(continued)
Amiga BASIC Animation: Creating Moving Objects
297
wide * 320: high = 200
IF depth > 5 THEN depth = 5
END IF
WmX = wide - 9: WinY - high - 15
5Crn 1
SCREEN 5crn, wide, high, depth, res
WINDOW 2, "Object Editor", (0,0) - (WinX,WinY), 0, scrn
2. List the subsection StaitOver. At the end of the subsection,

insert this line between the lines MENU RESET and CLS:
SCREEN CLOSE scrn
3. List the subroutine InitConstant:. Change the seventh line of

the subroutine from StatusLine 20 to:
StatusLine 23
4. List the subroutine InitFile:. Change the third line of the

subroutine from JF Depth = 2 THEN to:
IF Depth = 2 AND res = 1 THEN
5. List the subroutine PrintColorBai:. Replace the entire sub

routine with this modified version:
PnntColorBar :
COLOR CurrentColor
LOCATE 19,1: PRINT "Color:";
ColorBar = WIND0W(5) - 10
COLOR 1
x - 70: newbar - 0: barcaunt 0: barend = 640
FOR l = 0 TO maxColor
z = newbar + ColorBar
LINE (x,z ) - (x + 20,z + 10) , l, bf
LINE (x,z) - (x + 20,z + 10), l, b
x = x + 20
IF x + 20 > WINDDW{2) THEN
newbar newbar + 10
barcount = (x - 70) / 20
barend = x: x 70
END IF
NEXT l
RETURN
298
6. List the subroutine CheckColor:. Replace the entire sub
routine with this modified version:
CheckColor :
IF CurrentY < Co lorBar THEN RETURN
IF CurrentY > Color Bar + newbar + 10 THEN RETURN

IF Current X < 70 THEN RETURN
IF CurrentX > barend THEN RETURN

l = INT( (CurrentX - 70) / 20)
i = i + INT( (CurrentY - ColorBar) / 10] barcount

IF i > maxColor THEN RETURN
CurrentColor- i
GQSUB PrintColorBar
RETURN
7. Save this modified Object Editor under a new name like

NewEdit.
8. Be sure your default text font for BASIC is set to 80 columns.

The text in the new Object Editor won't fit on the screen if
you use the 60-column font. If it isn't set to 80, quit BASIC,
use Preferences in the Workbench to change the font, and
then restart BASIC.
DRAWING AN OBJECT
You can use the modified Object Editor to create both sprites
and bobs. (See Chapter 10 for more information about sprites and
bobs if you don't know what they are.) Run the modified Object
Editor program. When it starts, the program will ask you first for a
resolution mode and then for a depth. If you're going to draw a
sprite, enter mode 1 and depth 2. (You may have to click in the
window first to make the window active.)
If you're going to draw a bob, choose a resolution mode that
matches the resolution mode you want to use in your animation
program. Choose a screen depth that gives you the number of
colors you want to work with. (Recall that different bit-plane depths
give you a different number of colors to work with: 1 bit plane = 2
colors; 2 bit planes = 4 colors; 3 bit planes = 8 colors; 4 bit planes
= 16 colors; and 5 bit planes = 32 colors.)
Once you've chosen a resolution mode and depth, the editor
screen appears, unless you chose a resolution of mode 1 and a
depth of 2, in which case you're asked to choose between editing a
sprite and editing a bob. Once you've made your choice, the editor
screen (seen in Figure 12-1 on the next page) will appear and you
can begin to draw your object.
299
Figure 12-1.
The Object Editor's editor

screen, here set up for a
mode 1 resolution with
five bit planes.
Drawing a sprite
When you draw a sprite, the drawing area of the Object Editor
has a fixed width that limits the maximum width of the sprite.
That's because sprites are limited in width by the hardware that
draws them on the screen. The height of the drawing area is
adjustable, though, so you can change its size to fit the height of
the sprite you want to create.
Once you've set the height, you have a choice of four colors with
which to draw the sprite. Keep in mind that the first color in the
Object Editor's color bar, the background color, will be transparent
when the sprite appears in a window Any areas of the sprite you
colored using the background color (or didn't color at all, since by
default all the pixels are the background color) will let the playfield
and any other objects beneath the sprite show through.
When you finish drawing your sprite, you can save it to disk
using the Save command in the File menu. It will help jog your
memory later if you add .spr at the end of the name of each of the
sprites you create. For example, you might name a sprite shaped
like a pencil Pencil.spr. Later, when you look at all the names of the
different objects you created and stored on disk, you can identify
the sprites by reading the suffixes.
Take some time now to draw a sprite in the shape of a bee and
store it on disk. Name it Bee.spr. You can use it in the program
examples in Chapter 13.
300
Drawing a bob
You can draw a bob using any of four different resolutions and
anywhere from two to 32 different colors, depending on the depth
you set. The bob can be a variety of heights and widths. You can
change the size of the drawing area by stretching it horizontally
and vertically to the size you want. The Object Editor won't let you
stretch the drawing area to a size that will cteate a bob too large
for memory
The colors that appear in the color bar at the bottom of the
screen are the default colors contained in the color registers for that
screen. When you choose colors to draw your bob, remember that
the first color, the background color, is transparent when the bob
appears on the screen, just as it is when you use the background
color for a sprite.
When you save a bob to disk, you should add a suffix to its name
that identifies it as a bob and tells its resolution and how many bit
planes it uses. For example, if you create a mode 2 resolution 3-bit-
plane bob that is shaped like a car, you might name it Car.2bob3.
You might also name a mode 1 5-bit-plane bob shaped like a
bratwurst sandwich Bratsan.lbob5.
Before you finish creating objects with the Object Editor, use it
to draw several mode 1 bobs to use in the program examples later
in the chapter. Draw a l-bit-plane bob and save it as Bird.lbobl, a
3-bit-plane bob saved as Flower. Ibob3, and a 5-bit-plane bob
saved as Robot.Ibob5. Don't make them too large! You can use
these bobs later. When you've finished using the Object Editor,
choose Quit to stop running it.
CREATING A PLAYFIELD
Once you've drawn and saved some bobs and sprites, the first
step in creating a BASIC animation program that uses them is to
create the playfield, a background on which they can move. To do
this, you must first create a screen, and then create an output
window using the SCREEN and WINDOW statements you worked
with in Chapter 4. If you want to create a playfield that includes
more than just the background color, you can use some of the
BASIC drawing and printing statements to create figures or patterns
in the output window. Anything you put in the playfield with the
drawing and printing statements will be part of the background
when you put objects on the playfield with the BASIC animation
statements.
301
SCREEN RESOLUTION
When you set the screen resolution with the SCREEN statement,
try to match it to the resolution of the bobs you plan to use. You
can put a bob created in one resolution in a screen of a different
resolution, but the proportions of the bob will change as a result of
the change in proportion of the pixels that build it. For example, a
bob created using mode 1 will look half as wide in a mode 2 screen
because all the pixels on the screen are half as wide as they are on
a mode 1 screen. Figure 12-2 shows a mode 1 bob as it appears in
mode 1, mode 2, mode 3, and mode 4 screens-
Figure 12-2
A mode 1 bob shown

from top to bottom in
mode 1, mode 2, mode 3,
and mode A screens.
Sprites look the same no matter what the resolution of the screen
they're displayed in. That's because a sprite is not part of the
screen itself. It's displayed separately by the Amiga's hardware
using mode 1 pixels.
SCREEN DEPTH
To take full advantage of all the colors you selected for a bob, you
should create a screen that's as deep or deeper than the deepest
bob you want to use. For example, if you want to use two bobs, one
two bit planes deep and the other three bit planes deep, you should
create a screen at least three bit planes deep to fully accommodate
the two bobs.
302
You can place a bob on a screen with fewer bit planes than the
bob if you want, but you won't see all the colors in the bob because
the bob is limited to the number of bit planes in the screen. For
example, if you put a 5-bit-plane bob with 32 colors on a 2-bit-plane
screen that supports just four colors, the bob will be limited to two
bit planes, and will have only four colors- Any pixels using colors
that are above the range of that screen's depth will be displayed
using the background coloronly pixels with colors within the
depth of the screen will be displayed.
Sprites use their own color registers, so the depth of the screen
they appear on won't affect the color of the sprite.
CHOOSING COLORS
When you put bobs and sprites on a screen, the screen uses the
colors stored in its color registers to color the bob. These colors can
differ from the colors you used to draw the bob, because the Object
Editor doesn't save the actual colors you used. Instead, it saves the
color-register number of each pixel you used to draw the bob,
starting with 0 for the background color, and counting to the right
in the Object Editor's color bar. If there is more than one color bar,
the count resumes at the left end of the next bar down, and con
tinues to the right. For example, a mode 1 Object Editor screen
with 32 colors in the color bar would be numbered as shown in
Figure 12-3.
Figure 12-3.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 The color registers

used in the mode 1,
24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
5-bit-plane Object
Editor screen.
To use the colors in the Object Editor that you'll use in your
screen, you can further modify the revised Object Editor program:
list the subsection of the program named SetScreen and insert the
same PALETTE statements at the beginning of the subsection that
you will use to set the new colors for your screen. (Amiga BASIC'S
Cut and Paste commands in the Edit menu work very well for this.)
When you run the Object Editor, it will use your new colors.
Sprites use a different color scheme than bobs do. When the
Object Editor saves a sprite to disk, it automatically saves the first
color in the sprite (the second Workbench color) as turquoise, the
303
second color (the third Workbench color) as black, and the third
color (the fourth Workbench color) as orange. Later, when you recall
the sprite back to the screen in an Amiga BASIC program, the
sprite appears with those colors.
The Amiga uses color registers 17 through 19 to store the colors
of the first two sprites on the screen, color registers 21 through 23 for
the next two sprites, color registers 25 to 27 for the next two sprites,
and color registers 29 to 31 for the last two sprites. When BASIC
loads a sprite from disk, it assigns the colors stored with the sprite
to the color registers that sprite will use, changing any colors that
might already be there. If you're using a screen with 16 colors or
less, this has no effect on the screen colors. If you're using a 32-
color screen, the colors on the screen that use the same color
registers as the sprite uses will change as soon as a sprite appears.
If you want to create sprites with colors other than turquoise,
black, and orange, you can list the section of the Object Editor
titled SaveFile: and change the 20th, 21st and 22nd lines of the
section. These lines assign three hexadecimal RGB values to the
sprite disk file, one for each color of the sprite. The value in
parentheses following MKIS on each line contains a three digit
hexadecimal number (preceded by an "&H") that specifies the
amount of red, green, and blue that sprite color will contain. The
first digit of each number (the one on the left) is the red value, the
second digit of each number is the green value, and the third digit
of each number is the blue value of that sprite color. Each digit
represents the proportion, or strength, of that color on a scale of
0 to 15 (which, in hexadecimal, is 0 to F), so a value of FFF would
produce a white color (all three colors at maximum strength),
and a value of 000 would produce a black color (all three colors
"turned off").
WINDOW SIZE
Any objects and playfield drawings you create have to appear in
a window You can use any type and size of window as your output
window, but to make the most of the animation, you should have
plenty of room for the objects to move around. A type 0 window
a full-screen window with no title bar, gadgets, or window
refreshgives you the most room to work with. It also keeps the
window from being resized or dragged, activities that interfere
temporarily with animation in the window.
304
As an example, the following statements create a playfield for
animation statements you'll use later in the chapter. The SCREEN
statement creates a mode 1 screen that is five bit planes deep. The
WINDOW statement creates a type 0 window without a title bar on
the screen to serve as the playfield. The following FOR.. .NEXT loop
creates 50 boxes of random colors and sizes to create an interesting
background in the playfield:
Na IcePlayf 1 e Ic
SCREEN 1, 320, 200, S, 1
NINDOW 2, .,0,1
FDR 1 = 1 TD 50
xl = INTfWiNDOW(2) RND)
x2 - INT(WIND0W(2) RND)
yi = INT(WINDOW(3) RND)
y2 - INT(W!ND0W(3) RND)
LINE (xl,yl) - (x2, y2) , INT(32 RND) , B
NEXT i
This section of program lines, titled MakePlayfield, creates a

pjayfield for the mode 1 sprites and bobs you created earlier using
the Object Editor. Figure 12-4 shows the playfield. You can use this
program section in later program examples.
Figure 12-4.
A mode 1 playfield.
305
PUTTING OBJECTS ON THE PLAYFIELD
AND MOVING THEM
Once you've created a screen and opened a window to create a

playfield, you can put objects on the playfield and move them with
a set of Amiga BASIC animation statements. These BASIC
statements work together, and you should use them in the following
order to get good results:
1. Bring an object that you saved on disk using the Object

Editor into the Amiga's memory with the OBJECT.SHAPE
statement.
2. Specify where you want to place the object on the playfield

with the OBJECT.X and OBJECT.Y statements.
3. Use the OBJECT. ON statement to make the object appeal at

the location you specified.
4. Set the speed and direction of an object's motion with the

OBJECT.VX and OBJECT.VY statements.
5. Start objects moving with the OBJECT.START statement.
6. Speed up or slow down an object with the OBJECT.AX and

OBJECT.AY statements.
7. Stop an objects motion with the OBJECT.STOP statement.
8. Make an object disappear from the playfield with the

OBJECT.OFF statement.
9. Erase an object from the Amiga's memory with the

OBJECT.CLOSE statement.
This order isn't cast in concretefor example, you can use

an OBJECT.STOP statement before you use OBJECT.AX and
OBJECT.AY statementsbut for the most part the order is
important. For example, if you try to use any of the OBJECT
statements without first using the OBJECT.SHAPE statement, you
won't get any results. Likewise, it's important to set an object's
speed before you use OBJECT.START, and it's also important to start
an object moving before you try to stop it with the OBJECT.STOP
statement.
As you go through the animation statements in this section, the
program examples for each statement often don't do anything by
306
themselves, since the individual statements need to work with
other statements to create and move objects. To make the ex
amples work, you must add them to other program sections to
create a complete program, and then run the program. The
instructions preceding each program example will tell you how
to combine the sections together into a complete program that
you can run.
THE OBJECT.SHAPE STATEMENT

The OBJECT.SHAPE statement can perform two different tasks: It
can create an object in the Amiga's memory from the mformation
about an object stored on disk by the Object Editor, or it can dup
licate an object already in memory. Creating duplicate objects is
described in a later section. To put an object into the Amiga's
memory. OBJECT.SHAPE uses this format:
OBJECT.SHAPE object ID number, abject definition string
The object ID number can be any integer from 1 up to as many

objects as will fit in the Amiga's memory. The object definition
string is a string expression that contains the data necessary to
create an object.
When BASIC executes OBJECT.SHAPE, it creates an object from
the data in the object definition string and assigns it to the speci
fied object ID number. You can then use that object ID number with
other OBJECT statements to identify the object. If you use two
OBJECT SHAPE statements that both use the same ID number, the
second statement will remove from memory the object that was
created with the first statement, then create a new object using the
same ID number.
When you save an object to disk using the Object Editor, it saves
the object in the format needed by the object definition string for
defining the object. This makes it easy to bring an object into your
BASIC programyou don't have to worry about defining an object
because the Object Editor has already done it for you.
To get the object data stored on disk into the object definition
string, you must first open the disk file created by the Object Editor
with an OPEN statement, then assign the disk file contents to a
string with an INPUTS statement, and then close the disk file with a
CLOSE statement. The following example opens the disk file for a
bob named Cigai.lbob3, creates object number 1 using the cigar-
bob data, then closes the file:
OPEN "Cigar.1bob3" FOR INPUT AS 1
OBJECT.SHAPE 1, INPUT$(LDF(1),1)
CLOSE 1
Amiga BASIC Animation. Creating Moving Objects
307
In the first line, the OPEN statement opens a channel of com
munication numbered "1" between the disk file and the Amiga's
memory. In the second line, OBJECT.SHAPE creates an object
numbered 1 using the string created by the INPUTS statement.
The INPUTS statement creates the string by reading all the way to
the end of the file (found by LOF(l)) that's open on communication
channel 1. The third line closes communication channel 1. If you'd
like more information about OPEN, CLOSE, INPUTS, and LOFQ,
consult the Amiga BASIC manual.
OBJECT DATA STORED IN DRAWERS

When BASIC opens the object's disk file, it expects to find the
object file m the same Workbench drawer that the program it is
running is stored in. If you stored the object file in another drawer,
BASIC won't find it and will return a File not found error message.
For example, assume you created a Workbench drawer called
Animation. Inside the Animation drawer, you created two more
drawers: Programs and Objects. You store all your BASIC anima
tion programs in the Programs drawer, and all disk files you create
with the Object Editor in the Objects drawer. When you run a
program stored in the Programs drawer, the OPEN statement will
look for the object file to open in the Programs drawer, and won't
find it, since it's in the Objects drawer.
To make the program safe to use no matter where you store it,
you can specify drawers in the OPEN statement. In the previous
example, you could use the statement
DPEN ":Animallon/Objects/Cigar.1bob3" FOR INPUT AS 1
in place of the previous OPEN statement. The longer filename,

which is called a pathname, starts with a colon that asks OPEN to
begin searching on the same disk you're using to run BASIC. It then
asks OPEN to look inside the Animation drawer, where it should
find and look inside the Objects drawer, where it should find
"Cigar. Ibob3." By using a pathname, you can store the ob]ect files
in a completely different drawer from the program, run the pro
gram, and still have the OPEN statement find the object file that
you want.
To create your own object pathname, always start with a colon
or the name of the disk drive (such as dfl:), then foDow it with the
names of the drawers in which you store your objects, in order from
the first drawer you see on the Workbench to the final drawer that
contains your objects, ending with the name of your object file.
Separate the drawer names and the object filename with slashes.
SECTION 4. ANIMATION
308
You should also keep in mind that objects created by the Object
Editor will automatically be stored in the drawer containing the
Object Editor unless you specify otherwise using a pathname. To
avoid confusion, you should always copy your objects into the
drawer you intend to use them from immediately after you quit the
Object Editor.
To make some objects for your example program, add the follow
ing program section to the playfield example you typed in earlier.
(These object filenames assume your objects are in the same
drawer as your program.) This program section, which is named
MakeObjects, creates three objects numbered 1, 2, and 3 in the
Amiga's memory:
Mak eOb]ects:
OPEN "Flower.1bob3" FOR INPUT AS 1
OBJECT.SHAPE 1, INPUTt(LOF(1), I)
CLOSE 1
OPEN "Robot .1bob5" FOR INPUT AS 1
OBJECT.SHAPE 2, INPUT$(LDF(1), 1)
CLDSE 1
OPEN "Bee.spr" FOR INPUT AS 1
OBJECT.SHAPE 3, ! NPUTS ( LCJF ( 1 ) , 1)
CLOSE 1
THE OBJECT.X AND OBJECT.Y STATEMENTS

Once you've used the OBJECT.SHAPE statement to create an
object in memory, you can set it in place on the playfield using the
OBJECT.X and OBJECT.Y statements. They use this format:
OBJECT.X object ID number, x coordinate
OBJECT.Y object ID number, y coordinate
The object ID number is any ID number you used earlier in the

program to create an object with OBJECT.SHAPE. The x and y
coordinates can be any integers from - 32768 to + 32767.
To understand how these statements position an object in the
playfield, you must know how they view the boundaries of an
object. When you create an object with the Object Editor, even if
it's a small object in the center of the drawing area, you are actually
creating an object with rectangular boundaries the size of the
Object Editors drawing area. Chances are the boundaries are
invisible; you probably left background space around the object you
drew that doesn't show up on the playfield. When OBJECT.X and
OBJECT.Y position an object, they use the upper left corner of the
object's rectangular boundaries, as you can see in Figure 12-5 (on
the next page).
309
Figure 12-5. Reference for OBJECT.X and OBJECT.Y
The upper left corner

pixel of an object is used
by OBJECT.X and
OBJECT.Y to position
the object in the
playfield.
D-G
With this in mind, you should try to create objects in the Object
Editor as close to the upper left corner of the drawing area as
possible. This makes positioning the object easier and more
accurate, especially if the object is much smaller than the drawing
area. Don't worry about the invisible boundary interfering with the
way objects collide-Amiga BASIC uses the boundary only to
position the object. It ignores the boundary when objects collide,
and pays attention only to the non-background pixels in the object.
To position an object using OBJECT.X and OBJECT.Y, find the
address of the pixel on the playfield where you want to position the
upper left corner of the object's boundary. Then follow OBJECT.X
with the ID number of the object and the x (horizontal) coordinate
of the pixel address, then foDow OBJECT.Y with the ID number of
the object and the y (vertical) coordinate of the pixel address. For
example, to position the upper left corner of object 1 on pixel (34.50),
use these two statements;
OBJECT.X 1, 34
OBJECT.Y 1, 50
If you don't specify x and y coordinates for an object with

OBJECT.X and OBJECT.Y statements, BASIC positions the object at
pixel (0,0).
310
It's also possible to position an object entirely outside the
boundaries of the window you're using as a playfield. If you use x
and y coordinates beyond the range of the window, the object will
be positioned beyond the window boundaries. For example,
OBJECT.X 1, 1028
OBJECT.Y 1, 50
would put the object far off the right side of the window, even if it
was a full-width mode 4 window with 640 pixels across.
To position the three objects you made earlier for the example
program, add this program section at the end of the program;
PlaceObj ects:
OBJECT.X 1 , 0: OBJECT.Y 1 , 0
OBJECT.X 2, 150: OBJECT.Y 2, 0

These program lines position object 1 in the upper left corner of

the playfield, object 2 in the upper middle of the playfield, and
object 3 in the lower left corner of the playfield. You won't be able
to see them, however, until the objects are "turned on" with the
OBJECT.ON statement.
THE OBJECT.ON STATEMENT

Positioning an object with OBJECT.X and OBJECT.Y won't make
the object visible on the playfield. To do that, use the OBJECT.ON
statement to make objects visible wherever they have been posi
tioned on the playfield. It uses this format:
OBJECT.ON object ID number, object ID number, ...
The object ID numbers correspond to the object ID numbers of

objects created earlier in the program with OBJECT.SHAPE. You can
follow OBJECT.ON with as many object ID numbers as will fit in
one program line, as long as you separate them with commas. You
can also use just one object ID number, or use OBJECT.ON without
any ID numbers at all, in which case all the objects created with
OBJECT.SHAPE statements earlier in the program will become
visible on the screen in the positions you set with OBJECT.X and
OBJECT.Y. If you didn't specify an object's position, it will appear at
pixel (0,0) in the upper left corner of the playfield.
311
If you follow OBJECT.ON with one or more object ID numbers,
only the objects you specify will become visible on the playfield.
Unspecified objects will remain invisible. For example, the
statement
OBJECT.DN 3
will make objects 3 and 4 appear on the playfield.

To make all the objects in your example program appear on the
playfield, add this line to the end of the PlaceObjects: program
section:
OBJECT.DN
To see the objects, try running the program. You should see the
objects appear where you positioned them, as shown below in
Figure 12-6.
Figure 12-6.
Three objects positioned

on a playfield with
OBJECT.X. OBJECTY,
AND OBJECXON
statements.
THE OBJECT.VX AND OBJECT.VY STATEMENTS

To set an object on the playfield m motion, use the OBJECT.VX
and OBJECT.VY statements to set the horizontal and vertical
velocity of the object. They use these formats:
OBJECT.VX object ID number, x velocity
OBJECT.VY object ID number, y velocity
312
The object ID number is any of the ID numbers used by earlier
OBJECT.SHAPE statements in the program to create objects. The x
and y velocities can be any integers from -32768 to +32767.
The x and y velocities measure the speed of the object m pixels
per second. The x veiocity measures the horizontal speed, and the
y veiocity measures the vertical speed. A positive x veiocity value
moves the object right, and a negative x veiocity value moves the
object left. A positive y velocity value moves the object down, and
a negative y velocity value moves the object up. For example,
OBJECT.VX 1, 23
DBJECT.VY 1, 42
sets a veiocity that moves object number 1 23 pixels to the right

and 42 pixels down per second.
OBJECT.VX 1, -52
OBJECT.VY 1, -4
moves object number 1 52 pixels to the left and 4 pixels up per

second.
If you want to be precise, you can apply some basic ruies of
trigonometry to calculate the direction that the object will move,
given the x and y velocity values for the object. For example, con
sider the object mentioned before with an x velocity of 23 and a y
velocity of 42. By dividing the x value by the y value, then calc
ulating the arctangent of the result, you can determine that the
object will travel at a 28.70 degree angle to the right of a straight-
down direction. Figure 12-7 illustrates this.
Figure 12-7.
The direction of an object

traveling 23 pixels to the
right and 42 pixels down
per second
313
Direction of object
Keep in mind as you set an object's direction with x and y
velocity values that the proportions of the individual pixels in the
screen are an important factor in figuring the final direction of the
object. For example, an x velocity of 5 and an equal y velocity of 5
in a mode 1 screen will move the object at a 45-degree diagonal.
The same velocities in a mode 2 screen will move the object, at
approximately a 30-degree diagonal: The pixels are half as wide as
they are high, so 5 pixels down per second is twice the distance of
5 pixels to the right. On a mode 3 screen, x and y velocities of 5 will
move the object at approximately a 60-degree angle: The pixels are
half as high as they are wide, so 5 pixels to the right per second is
twice the distance of 5 pixels down. Figure 12-8 illustrates this.
Figure 12-8. x = 5 =b
The x and y velocity \ \ V
values for a mode 1

screen will produce dif
3 y= 5
\
ferent results on mode 2 \ \
\
and mode 3 screens
\ \
Mode 1 pixels Mode 2 pixels Mode 3 pixels
On a mode 4 screen, x and y velocities of 5 will move the object

in a 45-degree diagonal as they would in a mode 1 screen, but the
velocity would be halved compared to a mode 1 screen because
the pixels are only half as wide and half as high as they are in a
mode l screen.
Although you can in theory set an objects speed to 32767 pixels
per second, large numbers like these aren't practical. If you're using
a 320-by 200-pixel playfield, any speed much over 1000 pixels per
second moves the object so fast you can't even see it move.
To set the speeds of objects in your example program, add this
program section to the end of the program:
MoveObjecta:
OBJECT.VX 1, 10: OBJECT. vY 1, 10
OBJECT.VX 2, 0: OBJECT.VY 2, 10
314
These three program lines move object 1 diagonally down and to
the right at a 45-degree angle, object 2 straight down, and object 3
quickly from left to right across the playfield.
THE OBJECT.START STATEMENT

Setting the velocity of an object doesn't start the object moving.
You use the OBJECT.START statement to set the object in motion. It
uses this format:
OBJECT.START object ID number, object ID number, . . .
The object ID number is any of the ID numbers of objects

created earlier in the program with the OBJECT-SHAPE statement.
You can follow OBJECT.START with as many ID numbers as will fit
on a single program line, all separated by commas, or you can use
OBJECT.START with a single ID number, or without ID numbers at
all, in which case every object on the playfield is set in motion
using the velocities set with OBJECT.VX and OBJECT.VY state
ments. If you specify object ID numbers, only the objects specified
will start moving. If you don't assign an x or y velocity value to an
object, it won't move when you use the OBJECT.START statement
because objects have default x and y velocities of 0.
When you put an object in motion with OBJECT.START, it moves
until it collides with another object or with one of the borders of
the playfield window, or until it is stopped with an OBJECTSTOP
statement (discussed shortly). Once stopped, an object remains at
rest until another OBJECT.START statement starts it again. All
objects stop when the program ends, so unless you set up an
endless loop at the end of the program or otherwise prevent the
program from ending, you'll see all the moving objects suddenly
stop in their tracks as soon as BASIC has finished executing all
the program lines.
To set all the objects in your example program in motion, add
this line to the end of the MoveObjects: program section:
OBJECT.START
If you want to see how the program works now, add this one-line
program section at the end of the program and run it:
Loop: GOTO Loop
This line creates an endless loop so your objects will keep

moving until they collide with something.
Amiga BASIC Animation. Creating Moving Objects
315
THE OBJECT.AX AND OBJECT.AY STATEMENTS
After setting an object's velocity and moving it with
OBJECT.START, it moves in one direction at a steady speed. To
change an object's direction and speed, you can use the
OBJECT.AX and OBJECT.AY statements. They use these formats:
OBJECT.AX object ID number, x acceleration
OBJECT.AY object ID number, y acceleration
The object ID number is any of the ID numbers used by earlier

OBJECT.SHAPE statements in the program to create objects. The x
and y acceleration can be any integer from - 32768 to + 32767.
The x and y accelerations measure the change in velocity of the
object in pixels per second. The x acceleration value affects hori
zontal acceleration, the y acceleration value affects vertical accel
eration. A positive x acceleration value accelerates the object to the
right, a negative x acceleration value accelerates the object to the
left- A positive y acceleration value accelerates the object down,
and a negative y acceleration value accelerates the object up.
To see how these two acceleration statements affect the velocity
of an object, consider an object (ID number 2) that has an x velocity
of 25 pixels per second, and a y velocity of 25 pixels per second. It
moves on a 45-degree diagonal right and down toward the lower
right corner of the playfield. Use these two statements:
OBJECT.AX 2, -2
OBJECT.AY 2, -5
to slowly change the direction of the object up and to the left.

The following chart shows how the velocity of object 2 in the
preceding example would change over a period of 10 seconds:
x velocity y velocity
Start speed: 25 25
1 second: 23 20
2 seconds: 7A 15
3 seconds: 19 10
4 seconds: 17 5
5 seconds: 1', o
6 seconds: 13 5
7 seconds: 11 -10
8 seconds: (i -15
9 seconds: 7 -20
10 seconds: 5 - 25
316
After 10 seconds, the object has curved to change its direction
up and a little to the right.
By applying acceleration changes to the straight directions you
set with OBJECTVX and OBJECT.VY, you can move your object in
some very interesting curves. Experiment to see what you can do!
To add some interesting acceleration to your example program,
run the program after adding this short program section just before
the Loop; section at the end of the program:
ChangeMotion:
OBJECT.AV 3, -2
You should see object 3 curve up toward the top of the screen.
THE OBJECT.STOP STATEMENT

To stop a moving object, you use the OBJECT.STOP statement. It
uses this format:
BJECT.STDP obj set IDnumber, object IDnumber, . . .
You can specify any number of objects by listing their ID

numbers, separated by commas, after OBJECT.STOP. OBJECT.STOP
will stop only the objects you specify If you use OBJECT.STOP
without specifying an object ID number, it will stop all the objects
that are in motion.
Insert this program section into your example program just
before the Loop: section and run the program to see object 2 stop
in the middle of the playfield:
S t opObjec t:
FDR i = 1 TO 3000: NEXT i
OBJECT.STOP 2
The FOR.. NEXT loop makes the program wait so object 2 can
move partially down the screen before it's stopped by the
OBJECT.STOP statement.
THE OBJECT.OFF STATEMENT

To make an object invisible while it's located on the playfield,
use the OBJECT.OFF statement. It uses this format:
OBJECT.OFF object ID number, object ID number, . . .
Like OBJECT.STOP, you can specify any number of objects by

listing their ID numbers, in which case OBJECT.OFF makes invisible
only the objects you specify, or you can use OBJECT.OFF without
specifying any objects, in which case it makes all the objects in the
program disappear.
317
OBJECT.OFF automatically stops the motion of each object it
makes disappear. An object can't move while it's invisible, unless
you assign it a new location with the OBJEGT.X and OBJECT.Y
statements. If you don't change the object's location before you use
OBJECT.ON to make the object reappear, the object will reappear
and resume moving from exactly the same location where it
disappeared.
To see how OBJECT.OFF works, replace the StopObject: section
of your example program with the following section, and then run
the program;
Bl inkObj ects:
FDR 1 = 1 TD 3000: NEXT i
OBJECT.OFF
FDR l - 1 TD 3000: NEXT i
OBJECT.ON
The first FOR.. .NEXT loop lets the objects move normally for a
while. When the loop is finished, you should see all the objects in
motion disappear briefly while the second FOR.. .NEXT loop
executes, and then reappear in the same spot they disappeared,
resuming their previous motion.
THE OBJECT.CLOSE STATEMENT

Each time you create an object in memory with the
OBJECT.SHAPE statement, BASIC reserves several kilobytes of
memory to store the object. To regain that memory for other uses,
you can clear an object from memory when it's no longer in use by
using the OBJECT.CLOSE statement. It uses this format:
OBJECT.CLOSE object ID number, object ID number, . . .
You can specify individual objects by their ID numbers, in which

case OBJECT.CLOSE clears just the objects you specify from mem
ory, or you can use OBJECT.CLOSE without specifying any objects,
in which case it clears all objects from memory
If you close an object that's still moving on the playfield, it will
stop at once and disappear. Any subsequent OBJECT statements
that refer to that object ID number won't work until you create a
new object with the same ID number using OBJECT.SHAPE. If you
want to bring the object back into memory, you'll have to use the
OBJECT.SHAPE statement to recreate it again.
Objects remain in memory even after an animation program has
stopped running, so it's a good idea to clear all the objects at the
end of the program. Since many animation programs use an
318
endless loop to keep the animation moving, the user has to use the
Stop command in the Run menu to stop the program, so there's no
possibility of closing the objects within the program. After stop
ping the program, you can use OBJECT.CLOSE as an immediate
command in the Output window, but this doesn't provide the user
with an efficient means of clearing memory. It's even better to
create an alternative way for the user to quit the program, so the
program can finish up by closing screens and windows and
clearing objects from memory.
CREATING DUPLICATE OBJECTS
If you write animation programs that use many objects, you can
save memory and work by duplicating existing objects. You can use
the OBJECT.SHAPE statement to duplicate any object already in
memory, and then use the OBJECTPLANES statement to change the
colors of either the original or the duplicate objects.
USING OBJECT.SHAPE TO DUPLICATE OBJECTS

When you use OBJECT.SHAPE to create a new object in memory,
you assign the object's shape and color to an object ID number
with an object definition string that contains the object's data. If
you replace the object definition string with the object ID number
of an object that's already in memory, OBJECT.SHAPE will create a
new object that uses the same shape and colors as the original
object you specified. OBJECT.SHAPE uses this format to duplicate
an object:
OBJECT.SHAPE dup11 cate obj ec t IDnumber, orig1na1 obj ect ID number
The duplicate object ID number can be any integer from 1 to as

many objects as memory will hold. The original object ID number
must be the ID number of an object that has already been created
with the OBJECT.SHAPE statement.
When you create a duplicate object, it takes much less memory
to store the object than it takes to store an original object created
with the Object Editor- That's because both the original object and
its duplicate object use the same memory to store shape and color.
Each duplicate object you create requires only enough additional
memory to store information such as velocity and position-
Each duplicate object is still a separate entity when you move it
around the playfield. It has its own ID number, and you can assign
a unique position, velocity, and acceleration to each duplicate
object. You can turn each duplicate object on and off, start and
stop it, and close it without affecting the other duplicate objects or
Amiga BASIC Animation: Creating Mc/ing Objects
319
the original object. However, if you close the original object, the
duplicate objects will freeze in their tracks and refuse to respond to
any statement that asks them to move or change location, so avoid
closing an original object before you close its duplicates.
The following program creates a playfield and uses the
OBJECT.SHAPE statement to make three duplicates of an original
object. It places the four objects in the four corners of the playfield,
and moves them toward the center of the playfield:
PlayField:
SCREEN 1 , 320, 200 ,5,1
WINDOW 2, , , 0, 1
Mak eOrlginal:
DPEN "Flower.1bob3" FOR INPUT AS 1
OBJECT.SHAPE 1, 1NPUT$(LDF(1), 1)
CLOSE 1
Malt eDupl i ca t es :
FOR l = 2 TD 4
OBJECT.SHAPE i, 1
NEXT l
PlaceDbj ects:
OBJECT.X 1,0: OBJECT.Y 1, 0
OBJECT.ON
MoveQb j ec t 5 :
OBJECT.VX 2, 20: OBJECT.VY 2, -10
OBJECT.VX 3, -20: OBJECT.VY 3, -10
OBJECT.VX 4, -20: OBJECT.VY 4, 10
OBJECT.STflRT
Loop: GOTO Loop
USING OBJECT.PLANES TO CHANGE COLORS

Duplicate objects are the same color and shape as the original
object. To visibly distinguish the original object from its duplicate,
you can change the colors of the original or duplicate object to
a new set of colors by using the OBJECT.PLANES statement.
OBJECT.PLANES works only on bobs; it won't work on sprites.
It uses this format:
OBJECT.PLANES object ID number, PlanePick value,
PlaneOnOff value
320
The object ID number can specify any object already created
with the OBJECT.SHAPE statement, whether it's an original or a
duplicate object. The PlanePick and PlaneOnOff values can be any
integers from 0 to 31 in a 5-bit-plane screen, 0 to 15 in a 4-bit-plane
screen, 0 to 7 in a 3-bit-plane screen, and 0 to 3 in a 2-bit-plane
screen. The OBJECTPLANES statement has no practical effect on a
1-bit-plane screen. You can omit either the PlanePick value or the
PlaneOnOff value, in which case they're set to 0, but you can't omit
both. If you omit the PlanePick value, be sure to hold its place with
a comma.
OBJECTPLANES makes direct use of the graphics-animation

libraries in the system software by setting two bit-masks named
PlanePick and PlaneOnOff using the values you specify. To under
stand exactly how these masks work, you need to know binary
arithmetic and precise details of how the Amiga stores its graph
ics data. Rather than tackle topics that go beyond the range of
this book, a general description of how the OBJECTPLANES
statement works and some rules of thumb may help you to use
the statement effectively without having to leam advanced topics.
If you want to get more information, you can find detailed ac
counts of PlanePick and PlaneOnOff in the Amiga ROM Kernal
Manual, available through your Amiga dealer.
To get a general understanding of OBJECTPLANES, consider
how the Amiga stores colors in a playfield. The color-register num
ber of each pixel is a binary number that's stored in memory with
one bit in each of the playfield's bit planes. For example, m a 5-bit-
plane playfield, each pixel has a 5-bit number, stored with one bit
in each bit plane. In a 3-bit-plane playfield, each pixel has a 3-bit
number, stored one bit per bit plane.
Now consider what happens when the Amiga moves a 2-bit-
plane bob through a 5-bit-plane playfield. To move the bob around
the playfield, the Amiga erases the pixels where the bob will be
located, and fills them with the color-register numbers of the bob's
pixels. When the bob moves away, the Amiga restores the original
pixel numbers in the playfield. Since the bob pixels are only two bit
planes deep, their color-register numbers use only the bottom two
bit planes of the playfield pixels they occupy. Since the top three bit
planes aren't used, the Amiga fills them with zeros.
When you set a PlanePick value using OBJECTPLANES, you tell
the Amiga to spread the bob's bit planes throughout the playfield
bit planes. For example, with a 2-bit-plane bob in a 5-bit-plane
playfield, you can specify that the bob pixels' color-register
numbers will be stored in playfield bit planes 2 and 4 instead of bit
planes 1 and 2 (the two bottom bit planes). The Amiga will fill in

321
the remaining planes (1. 3, and 5), with zeros. This results m a new
set of color-register numbers for each pixel in the bob and changes
the color of the bob.
You can further change the bob's colors by setting the
PlaneOnOff mask. PlaneOnOff fills the bit planes that are unused
by the bob's pixels with either ones or zeros, depending on the
PlaneOnOff value you used. This lets you insert ones or zeros in
the bob pixels' unused bit planes, and lets you further change the
bob colors to a new set of colors.
One way to get usable results from OBJECT.PLANES without
calculating original bob colors and resulting bob colors through
binary bit-plane conversions is to use the trial-and-error method:
Write a short program that puts an original and duplicate bob on
the playfieid and use OBJECT.PLANES with different values for
PlanePick and PlaneOnOff to change the color of either the original
or the duplicate bob. Run the program, and look at the results. You
can change the PlanePick and PlaneOnOff values until you get the
colors you want. Of course, if you're working with a 5-bit-plane
screen, there are over a thousand different combinations of values,
most of which won't give you the results you want. For example,
many of the PlanePick values you can use with OBJECT.PLANE will
actually decrease the number of colors you see in a bob. There are
several ways to limit the number of possible values to a set of
values that works well:
* To avoid losing colors, don't use OBJECTPLANE on a bob if the

bob has as many bit planes as the screen in which it appears.
It will only reduce the number of colors in the bob, or at best
leave the colors alone. For example, OBJECT.PLANE won't work
well for a 4-bit-plane bob in a 4-bit-plane screen.
* The PlaneOnOff value sets a mask that works with whatever

value is in the PlanePick mask. Many PlaneOnOff values have
no effect at all when they work with certain PlanePick values.
It's always best to try a PlanePick value by itself to see how the
bob's color changes, and then to add the PlaneOnOff value to
see how it changes the PlanePick colors.
* To set a bob back to its original colors, set the PlanePick and
PlaneOnOff values at 0.
322
Setting PlanePick and PlaneOnOff values
What follows are tables of PlanePick and PlaneOnOff values for
bobs of different bit-plane depths. These tables are designed to
reduce your trial and error time, as the values they contain have
been calculated to produce meaningful results. The PlanePick
values in the table won't decrease the number of colors in the bob,
and the table's PlaneOnOff values will change the colors set by the
PlanePick value.
1-bit-plane bobs
PlanePick PlaneOnOff values

values that produce results
...in a 1 0, 2
2-bit-plane 2 0, 1
screen
...in a 1 0,2,4 ,6
3-bit-plane 2 0, 1,4 , 5
screen 4 0, 1,2 , 3
...in a 1 0,2,4 , 6, 8, 10, 12, 14

4-bit-plane 2 0, 1.4 , 5, 8. 10, 12, 14
screen 4 0, 1,2 .3,8,9, 10, 11
8 0, 1,2 , 3, 4. 5, 6, 7
...in a 1 0,2,4 , 6, 8. 10, 12, 14, 16, 18,

5-bit-plane 20, 22, 24, 26, 28, 30
screen 2 0, 1,4 , 5, 8. 9, 12, 13, 16, 17, 20,
21. 24, 25, 28, 29
4 0, 1,2 ,3. 8.9, 10, 11, 16, 17, 18,
19, 24, 25, 26, 27
{! 0. 1,2 , 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 16, 17, 18, 19,
20, 21, 22, 23
16 0, 1,2 ,3,4,5, 6,7,8,9, 10, 11,
12, 13, 14, 15
323
2-bit-plane bobs

...in a 3 0, 4
3-bit-plane 5 0, 2
screen 6 0, 1
...in a 3 0, 4, 8, 12
4-bit-plane 5 0, 2, 8, 10
screen 6 0, 1,8, 9
9 0, 2, 4, 6
10 0, 1. 4, 5
12 0. 1,2, 3
...in a 3 0, 4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24, 28

5-bit-plane 5 0. 2, 8, 10, 16, 18, 24, 26
screen 6 0, 1, 8, 9, 16, 17,24, 25
9 0. 2, 4, 6, 18, 20, 22, 24
10 0. 1,4, 5, 16, 17,20, 21
12 0, 1,2,3, 16, 17, 18, 19
17 0. 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14
18 0, 1,4,5,8,9, 12, 13
20 0, 1,2,3,8,9. 10. 11
24 0, 1,2,3,4, 5,6.7
3-bit-plane bobs

...in a 7 0, 8
4-bit-plane 11 0,4
screen 13 0, 2
14 0, 1
...in a 7 0, 8. 16. 24
5-bit-plane n 0, 4, 16, 20
screen 13 0, 2, 16, 18
14 0, 1, 16, 17
19 0, 4, 8, 12
21 0, 2, 8, 10
22 0, 1, 8, 9
25 0, 2, 4, 6
26 0, 1,4, 5
28 0, 1, 2, 3
324
4-bit-plane bobs

...in a 15 0, 16
5-bit-plane 23 0, 8
screen 27 0.4
29 0, 2
30 0, 1
An OBJECT.PLANES example
The best way to use these different values is to find the table of
values for the bob and screen you're working with. Plug the
different values into the OBJECT.PLANES statement and run the
program to see what colors you come up with. Trial and error will
eventually find the colors you want. For example, the following
program section uses three of the sets of values that change the
color of three 3-bit-plane bobs in a 5-bit-plane screen:
Co 1orBob5:
OBJECT.PLANES 2, 19, 8
If you insert this section just before the PlaceObjects: section in

the last example program, when you run the program you'll see that
each of the three duplicate bobs is colored differently.
You've now learned how to draw your own sprites and

bobs with the Object Editor. With the Amiga BASIC state
ments you've learned in this chapter, you can put those
bobs in the Amiga's memory, and then put them on the
screen, moving them in different direction at different
speeds. You can also duplicate and recolor bobs. In the next
chapter, you'll be able to make the bobs move where and
how you want them to, and be able to control how they
react when they hit other bobs.
325
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
AMIGA BASIC
ANIMATION:
CONTROLLING
MOTION
In the last chapter, you put objects on a playfield,
instructed them to move, and watched them move like
drifting boats until you stopped them or until they ran into
another object or the playfield border. Amiga BASIC can
control moving objects with much more finesse than that.
By constantly checking the position and speed of each
object, BASIC can tell when the object reaches a desired {or
undesired) location or speed, and can then take appropriate
actions. By checking to see if any of the objects collide with
another object or the playfield border, it can act on the
collision to let one object pass over another, make the
object change direction, remove it from the playfield, or
perform any number of other actions.
In this chapter, you'll learn how to use the Amiga BASIC
animation statements that check and control motion and
collisions, and you'll see how to put the statements
together to make objects move with rhyme and reason.
You'll also find out how to control which object passes over
another object to create 2Y2-D animation, and how to avoid
collisions between objects. The end of the chapter has
information about interesting miscellaneous animation
abilities of Amiga BASIC: how to scroll a section of the
playfield, and how to use the PUT and GET statements to
create true sequeneed-image animation.
CREATING A MOTION BOUNDARY WITH

THE OBJECT.CLIP STATEMENT
One of the simplest ways to control the motion of moving objects

in a playfield is to create a motion boundary. When you first create
an output window to use as the playfield, BASIC automatically sets
the motion boundaries as the borders of the window itself. You can
use the OBJECT.CLIP statement to reset the motion boundaries to
enclose a smaller area of the playfield within the output window so
the moving objects won't move out of the area and interfere with
text or graphics displayed in another part of the playfield. You can
328
also use OBJECT-CLIP to create motion boundaries that are beyond
the borders of the output window so objects can move beyond the
window borders, out of sight, before they hit a boundary.
THE OBJECT.CLIP STATEMENT

The OBJECT.CLIP statement uses this format:
OBJECT.CL IP(corner address) - (corner address)
The corner addresses are like the standard pixel addresses you
use with drawing statements, except that the x and y coordinates
can be any integer from -32768 to +32767, making addresses
located outside of the output window like (-1045,73) possible. Like
the two addresses used to create a box with the LINE statement,
these two corner addresses set the location of two opposing corners
of a rectangle.
Any objects moving within the OBJECT.CLIP rectangle will move
until they collide with one of its sides or another object. Any ob
jects located outside the rectangle won't move even if they're given
an OBJECT START command.
In the following program example, the OBJECT.CLIP statement
creates an invisible rectangle in the middle of the screen. When you
run the program, an object is positioned within the rectangle and
instructed to move until it is stopped by one of the boundaries.
Figure 13-1 fon the next page) shows you how it works.
MakePlayfleld:
SCREEN 1, 320, 200, 5, 1
WINDOW 2, , , 0, 1
MakeObject:
OPEN "Bird.ibobi" FOR INPUT AS 1
OBJECT.SHAPE 1, INPUT$(LDF(1), 1)
CLOSE 1
MoveDbj ec t:
OBJECT.VX 1, 25
OBJECT.CLIP(50,50) - (250,150)
OBJECT.ON
OBJECT.START
Loop : GOTO Loop
Amiga BASIC Animation: Controlling Motion
329
Figure 13-1. (50,50) Object stops here
An object is stopped by
boundaries set by the
OBJECT CUP statement.
Window boundary OBJECT.CLTP boundary

(250,150)
READING AN OBJECT'S LOCATION AND VELOCITY
To get more control over moving objects than you can get with
OBJECT.CLIP, it's important for BASIC to be able to read the location
and velocity of each moving object at any moment. Amiga BASIC
has four functions that return the x and y coordinates and the x and
y velocities of any object on the playfield. You can write a BASIC
program to test the values the functions return, and then act
accordingly.
THE OBJECT.XQ AND OBJECT.Y() FUNCTIONS

OBJECT.XO and OBJECT.Y() are two functions that return the x
and y coordinates of an object's location in a playfield. They use
these formats:
DBJECT.X(object ID number)
OBJECT .Y(object ID number)
330
Don't confuse these two functions with the OBJECT.X and
OBJECT.Y statements you read about in the last chapter. The
functions here use parentheses around the object ID number and
don't include coordinate valuesthis is what distinguishes them
as functions, not statements. The object ID number is the ID
number of any object created previously in the program by an
OBJECT.SHAPE statement.
OBJECT. X() and OBJECT. Y() return the x and y coordinates of the
pixel address of the upper left corner of the object's rectangular
boundary. (See the description of the OBJECT.X and OBJECT.Y
statements in Chapter 12 for more information about how the upper
left corner of an object's boundary is determined.} OBJECT.XQ
returns the x (horizontal) coordinate, OBJECT.Y() returns the y
(vertical) coordinate.
Since OBJECT.XO and OBJECT.Yf) are functions that don't actually
perform any task when used alone in a program line, they must be
used as a value assigned to a variable or used within a statement
in a program line. For example, the following two program lines
assign the x and y coordinates of object 3 to the variables x3 and y3:
x3 - OBJECT.X(3)
y3 = OBJECT.Y(3]
If the upper left corner of object 3s boundary was located at pixel

(45,102) in the playfield when BASIC executed these two statements,
x3 would then be equal to 45, and y3 would be equal to 102.
THE OBJECT.VXO AND OBJECT.VYQ FUNCTIONS

To read the velocity and direction of motion of any moving
object in a program, you can use the OBJECT.VXO and OBJECTVYO
functions with these formats:
OBJECT.VX(object IDnumber)
OBJECT.VY(object ID number)
Again, don't confuse these two functions with the OBJECT.VX

and OBJECT. VY statements you read about in the last chapter. The
OBJECT.VXO and OBJECTVYO functions use parentheses around the
object ID number, and don't include a velocity value. The object ID
number is the ID number of an object created earlier in the
program by an OBJECTSHAPE statement. OBJECT.VXO returns the
horizontal (x) velocity in pixels per second of the object you specify;
OBJECTVYO returns the vertical (y) velocity in pixels per second.
331
Like OBJECT.XO and OBJECT.Y{), OBJECT.VXO and OBJECT.VY()
are functions, so they can't be used alone in a program line. They
must be assigned to a variable or used as a value with another
statement. For example, the following two program lines use the
OBJECT.VXO and OBJECT.VYO functions to read the x and y
velocities of object 2, and use the OBJECT.VX and OBJECT.VY
statements to assign them as the velocities for object number 3:
OBJECT.VX 3, OBJECT.VX(2)
OBJECT.VY 3, OBJECT.VY(2)
AN EXAMPLE USING LOCATION AND VELOCITY FUNCTIONS

If you create a series of statements within a program loop that
constantly reads the location and velocity of objects, you can use
an IE. .THEN statement within that loop to branch the program to
another action if the statements within the loop read a desired
location or velocity of an object. In the following program example,
two objects are moving on the playfield. Object 1 moves in a
diagonal from the upper left comer toward the lower right corner.
Object 3 moves from left to right across the lower part of the screen,
starting slowly and accelerating as it moves.
The section of the program labeled Test: is a loop that uses
OBJECT.Y{) to see how far object 1 has moved down the screen,
and OBJECT.VXO to see how fast object 3 is moving across the
screen. If object 1 moves to a position with a y coordinate higher
than 99, the program jumps to a subroutine that stops the object. If
object 3 accelerates to an x velocity faster than 50 pixels per sec
ond, then the program jumps to a subroutine that stops object 3
from accelerating any further. Figure 13-2 shows how this works.
MalcePlayf leld:
SCREEN 1, 320, 200, S, 1
WINDOW 2, , , 0 , 1
MafceObj ecta :
OPEN "Bee.spr" FDR INPUT fiS 1
OBJECT.SHAPE 1, INPUT$(LOF(1), 1}
CLOSE 1
OBJECT.SHAPE 3, INPUTS(LOF(1), 1)
CLOSE 1
PlaceObj ecta:
OBJECT.DN
(continued)
332
MoveObj ec 15 :

OBJECT.VX 3, 5: OBJECT.AX 3, 1
OBJECT.START
Tes t :
IF OBJECT.Y(1) > 99 THEN GOSUB Stopi
IF OBJECT.VX(3) > GO THEN GOSUB Steady3

GOTO Test
Stopi:
OBJECT.STOP 1
RETURN
Steady3:
DBJECT.AX 3, 0
RETURN
i Object 1 IObject stops moving Figure 13-2.
You can use BASIC'S

location and velocity
functions to check an ob
ject's speed and position,
then have BASIC react
accordingly.
Object 2 '-Object stops accelerating
HANDLING OBJECT COLLISIONS
Controlling object collisions is very important in Amiga BASIC

animation. As you saw in the last chapter, whenever an object
collides with another object or a boundary, it automatically stops its
motion unless you include statements that tell BASIC to perform
333
some other action in the event of a collision. With the OBJECT.HIT
statement, you can ask BASIC to ignore a collision, in which case
the objects will just pass each other. You use the OBJECT.PRIORITY
statement to tell BASIC which object should appear on top as they
pass. If you do allow objects to collide, you can use the COLLISION
ON and ON COLLISION GOSUB statements with the COLUSIONO
function to control how the objects react when they collide.
THE OBJECT.HIT STATEMENT

The OBJECT.HIT statement lets you define objects as different
types, and lets you decide which types of objects will collide and
which types won't collide. It uses this format:
OBJECT.HIT object ID number, type value, hit value
The object ID number is the ID number of any object created

earlier in the program with the OBJECT.SHAPE statement. Both
the type value and the hit value can be any integer from
-32768 to +32767.
You use the type value to define the specified object as none,
any, or all of 16 different types of objects. BASIC interprets type 1 as
a window or OBJECT-CLIP boundary. The other 15 types of objects
are abstract typesBASIC only knows them by numbers as types
2 through 16so you can think of them as whatever you wish.
For example, in a video-game program you might decide to use
type 2 objects as spaceships, type 3 objects as laser beams, and
type 4 objects as planets. The following chart lists a value for each
of the 16 different object types:
Type 1: 1 Type 5: 16 Type 9: 256 Type 13: 4096

Type \ 8 Type 8: 128 Type 12: 2048 Type 16: - 32768
To define an object as any of these types except type 1 (defining

an object as a boundary won't workBASIC just ignores it), just
choose the types you want, then add their values together to come
up with the type value. For example, if you want an object to be
defined as both a type 7 and a type 12 object, you add the values
for types 7 and 12 together (64 and 2048) to get a result of 2112. That
is the type value for that object.
334
If you want an object to be defined as just one object type, use
the value for that one type as the type value. For example, to define
an object as just a type 16 object, you use a type value of -32768. If
you use a type value of 0, you tell BASIC that the specified object
isn't any of the 16 types. If you want to define an object as all 16
object types, you use the type value of -1, which is the sum of all
16 values in the table.
The hit value is a number that identifies all the types of objects
that an object can collide with. When an object touches a second
object in the playfield, BASIC checks the first object's type value to
see what type (or types) of object it is. It then checks the second
object's hit value to see what types of objects it's supposed to col
lide with. If the first object is on the second object's hit list, BASIC
registers a collision between the two objects. If the first object isn't
on the hit list, the two objects pass by without collision.
The hit value uses the same table of values that the type value
uses. To set the hit value, you choose the type or types of objects
you want to put on the hit list, find their values, then add them
together to get the hit value. If you don't want any types of objects
or the boundaries on the hit list, then use a hit value of 0. If you
want all types of objects on the hit list, then use a hit value of -1.
If you want only boundaries on the hit list, then use a hit value of 1.
When two objects touch on the playfield, it's important for BASIC
to determine which is the fust object and which is the second
object, since BASIC must match the hit value of the first object
against the type value of the second object. The rule of collision is
that the object that is the upper leftmost of the two objects is the
first object. If you want to define an object that won't collide with
any other object on the playfieid, you have to assign it a type value
of 0 and a hit value of 0 or 1, since you can never be sure if it wiil be
the first object that BASIC checks for type, or the second object that
BASIC checks for a hit list.
When an object hits a boundary BASIC always checks the hit list
of the object. The boundary has no hit list itself. It has only a type
value of 1.
As an example, think of a simple animation with three types of
moving objects: bees, flowers waving in the wind, and birds. Bees
shouldn't collide with other bees and birds, but should collide with
flowers so they can stop for nectar. Birds shouldn't collide with
any of the three types of objects., and flowers shouldn't collide with
other flowers or birds, but should collide with bees.
If you decide that bees are object type 2, birds are object type 3,
and flowers are object type 4, then you can assign type and hit
values for the objects. Bees should have a type value of 2 and a hit
335
value of 9. so they can hit both flowers (8) and boundaries (1). Birds
should have a type value of 4. and a hit value of 1, so they can col
lide with boundaries, but not anything else. Flowers should have a
type value of 8 and a hit value of 3. so they can collide with bees
(2) and boundaries (1).
The following simple example program puts one bee, one bird,
and one flower in motion on the playfield. using those type and hit
values. This example uses the sprites and bobs that you drew in
Chapter 12. When you run it, you should see the bee (object 1) move
diagonally across the screen, while the bird (object 2) and the
flower (object 3} move horizontally across the screen. The bee will
pass over the bird and stop when it collides with the flower. Figure
13-3 illustrates the objects' actions.
MakePlayfleld:
SCREEN 1 , 320, 200 ,5,1
WINDDN 2, , , 0, 1
MafceObjects:
DPEN "Bee.apr" FOR INPUT AS 1
OBJECT.SHAPE 1, I NPUTS(LDF(1) , 1)
CLOSE 1
OPEN "Bird.1bob1" FOR INPUT AS 1
OBJECT.SHAPE 2, INPUTi(LOF(1}, 1)
CLOSE 1
DPEN "Flower.1bob3" FOR INPUT AS 1
OBJECT.SHAPE 3, 1 NPUTtfLOF(1 ) , 1)
CLOSE 1
PlaceObj ects:
DBJECT.X 3, 0: OBJECT.Y 3, 150
OBJECT.ON
I dent ifyObjects:
OBJECT.HIT 1,2,9
OBJECT.HIT 2,4,1
OBJECT.HIT 3, 8, 3
MoveObj ectsNew:
OBJECT.VX 2, 20
OBJECT.VX 3, 20
OBJECT.START
Loop: GDTO Loop
336
Bee passes over bird Figure 13-3.
Using OBJECT.HIT to
define different types of
objects enables a bee to
pass over a bird and col
lide with a flower.
Bee and flower collide
THE OBJECT.PRIORITY STATEMENT

When two objects pass and touch, BASIC has to decide which
object will pass over the top of the other. To do so, it uses the same
rule it uses to determine which is the first of two colliding objects:
By default, the upper leftmost object wiU pass over the lower
rightmost object. If you want to change the passing priority, you
can use the OBJECT.PRIORITY statement. It uses this format:
OBJECT.PRIORITY object ID number, priority value
The object ID number is the ID number of an object created

earlier in the program with an OBJECTSHAPE statement. The
object must be a bob; OBJECT.PRIORITY won't work with sprites.
The priority value is any integer from -32768 to +32767.
When you use OBJECT.PRIORITY to assign a priority value to a
specified bob, BASIC remembers that value when two bobs pass
each other. The bob with the higher priority value will pass over
the top of the bob with the lower priority value. For example, if you
assign a priority value of 2 to one bob and 5 to a second bob, the
second bob will always pass over the first bob. If two bobs have the
same priority, BASIC falls back on the "upper leftmost" rule to
decide which bob appears on top.
Consider the previous program example. If you substitute the
robot bob for the bee sprite in the MakeObjects: program section,
337
then add this program section just before the MoveObjectsNew:
section of the last example, when you run the program the robot
will pass under the bird instead of over it, because the robot's
priority is lower than the bird's:
SetPr ion ty:
OBJECT.PRIORITY 1, 0
OBJECT.PRIORITY 2 , 10
THE COLLISION ON STATEMENT

Although its name implies that COLLISION ON will enable
collisions to occur on the playfield, that's not what it does. Instead,
it turns on the collision queue. The collision queue is a section of
memory that keeps a record of the collisions that occur on the
playfield, in the order they occur.
COLLISION ON also enables other statements and functions to
work, like ON COLLISION GOSUB and COLLISIONS a statement and
a function that use the collision queue. COLLISION ON uses a very
simple format:
COLLISION ON
Once BASIC executes COLLISION ON, the collision queue stays

on until BASIC executes a COLLISION OFF or COLLISION STOP
statement (both discussed later in this chapter).
THE ON COLLISION GOSUB STATEMENT

BASIC automatically stops an object when it collides with
another object or a border (unless, of course, you've instructed
BASIC not to do so). If you want something else to happen when a
collision occurs, you can write a subroutine that performs the
object action you want, and then use the ON COLLISION GOSUB
statement to jump to that subroutine as soon as a collision occurs.
ON COLLISION GOSUB uses this format:
ON COLLISION GOSUB line name/number
The line name/number is the subroutine name or the line

number where a subroutine starts.
When BASIC executes ON COLLISION GOSUB in a program, it
then moves on to execute the following program statements just as
if nothing happenedwith one exception. After it executes each
338
statement, it looks at the collision queue to see if any collisions
have occurred. If there are no collisions, BASIC keeps executing
more program statements just as it would normally. If a collision
occurs, BASIC immediately jumps to the beginning of the sub
routine you specified in the ON COLLISION GOSUB statement,
executes it, and then returns to execute the statement that follows
the last statement it executed before it detected the collision.
If you want to turn off the ON COLLISION GOSUB statement so
that BASIC won't jump to a subroutine for every collision that
occurs, use:
DN COLLISION GDSUB 0
The line number 0 turns off the collision checking.

What happens in the subroutine that ON COLLISION GOSUB
points to is entirely up to you. Chances are that you will use the
COLLISIONO function in the subroutine to find out more about the
collision before you act on it.
THE COLLISION*) FUNCTION

The COLLISIONO function returns information from the collision
queue. It uses this format:
COLLISiaH(ID number)
The ID number can be the object ID number of any object

created earlier in the program by an OBJECT. SHAPE statement. It
can also be a -1 or a 0.
To best understand how the COLLISIONO function works, it's
important to know how the collision queue stores collisions. The
queue can store up to 16 coDisions at one time. If any collisions
occur after the queue is filled up, they aren't stored in the queue
and leave no record of their occurrence.
The collision queue stores three pieces of information for each
collision that it records:
1. The object ID number of the first (upper leftmost) object of

two colliding objects. If it's a collision between an object and
a boundary, it stores the object ID number of the object.
2. The object ID number of the second (lower rightmost) object

in a two-object collision. If it's a collision between an object
and a boundary it stores one of four negative numbers that
339
indicates which of the four boundaries has been hit. Those
four boundary ID numbers are:
BOUNDARY ID NUMBER
Top: -1
Left: -2
Bottom:
Right: -4
3. The window number of the window where the collision

occurred.
The collision queue stores collisions in the order they occur; that
is, the first collision in the queue is the collision that occurred
before all the other collisions; the last collision in the queue is the
most recent collision. Figure 13-4 shows how this works.
Figure 13-4 -Back of queue Front of queue-

Mm CtMlUP
The collision queue.

Most recent collision Oldest collision
If you use a 0 as the ID number for COLLISION(), COLLISION()

checks the first (oldest) collision in the queue and returns the
object ID number of the first object involved in the collision. If
you use a -1 as the ID number, COLLISIONf) returns the window
ID number of the window where the collision identified by
COLLISION(O) occurred. When COLLISION!) checks the queue
using -1 or 0 as the ID number, it reads information from the
queue without changing the contents of the queue.
If you use an object ID number as the ID number (a positive
integer), COLLISIONQ searches through the collisions in the queue
from the front to the back to see if that object was involved in any
collision as either the first or second object. If it finds a collision
involving that object, COLLISION^) returns the object ID number of
the other object or the boundary ID number of the boundary that
the object collided with. It also removes that collision from the
queue, so that all the collisions behind it move forward and leave
340
another space open for a collision at the end of the gueue. If
COLLISIONO finds no collision m the gueue involving the specified
object, it returns a 0 and doesn't alter the contents of the queue.
To give you an idea of how COLLISIONO works, consider this
example. Three successive collisions occur on a playfield while the
collision queue is turned on: Object 2 collides with object 1, object
4 collides with the left boundary, and object 3 collides with object 1.
If you use
PRINT CQLLISIDN(D)
to check the contents of the queue, it returns a 2, the object ID of

the first object involved in the first collision. If you then use
PRINT CDLLISIDN(2}
it returns a 1, the object ID number of the object that object 2 hit. It

also takes that collision off the collision queue. If you use
PRINT CDLLISIDNJ1)
COLLISIONO searches the queue for a collision involving object 1,

and finds one at the end of the gueue. It returns a 3, the object ID
number of the object that object l hit, and then removes the
collision from the queue. The only collision left in the gueue, now at
the front of the queue, is the collision between object 4 and the left
boundary. If you use
CDLL1SION(4)
it will return a -2, the boundary ID number, and removes that

collision from the collision queue.
AN EXAMPLE USING COLLISION ON, ON COLLISION GOSUB,

AND COLLISIONO
The following program example puts three objects on the screen
and moves them in different directions. The program section
labeled DetectCoUision: uses COLLISION ON to turn on the collision
queue, and ON COLLISION GOSUB to start the program checking for
collisions. It names CheckColIision: as the name of the line to jump
to when a collision occurs.
The subroutine CheckCollision: checks to see what kind of
collision occurs, and changes the motion of the objects so they
341
move away from what they hit. The second line of the subroutine
gets the object number of the first object in the first collision and
stores it in the variable objectid The third line checks it to see if
there actually has been a coUisionif there hasn't, it returns
program execution to the Loop: section, which is an endless loop
that loops until a collision occurs. The fourth line of CheckCollision:
reads the ID number of the object that was hit in the first collision
in the queue, and assigns it to the variable hitobject.
The next two lines of the subroutine check to see if the object
has hit the upper or lower boundary f -1 or - 3), and if it has,
reverses the vertical motion of the object. Lines 7 and 8 check to
see if the object has hit the left or right boundary (- 2 or - 4), and
reverses the horizontal motion of the object if it has. Lines 9, 10, and
11 assume that if the object hasn't hit any boundaries, it must have
hit another object. They reverse the vertical and horizontal motion
of both objects involved in the collision.
The OBJECT.START statement toward the end of the subroutine
starts the colliding object or objects in motion again, since BASIC
automatically stops them when they collide. The last line of the
subroutine returns program execution to the Loop: section of
the program.
MakePlayfield:
SCREEN 1, 320, 200, 5, 1
WINDOW 2, , , 0, 1
Malt eDbj ec 15 :
OPEN "Bee.spr" FDR INPUT AS 1
BJECT.SHAPE 1, I NPUT$ ( LDF (1 ) , 1)
CLOSE 1
OPEN "Bird.ibobi" FOR INPUT AS 1
OBJECT.SHAPE 2, 1NPUT$(LQF(1) , 1)
CLOSE 1
OBJECT.SHAPE 3, 1NPUT$(LOF(1), 1)
CLOSE 1
PlaceObj ects :
OBJECT.X 1, 0: OBJECT. Y 1 , 0
OBJECT.DN
(continued)
342
MoveDbj ec t 5:
OBJECT.VX 1, 15; OBJECT.VY 1, 25
OBJECT.VX 2, 40: OBJECT.VY 2, -30
OBJECT.VX 3, -15: OBJECT.VY 3, 20

OBJECT.START
Detec tCo11i 5 ion :
COLLISION ON
ON COLLISION GOSUB CheckCollision
Loop : GOTO Loop
Chec k Col 11 sioti:
obj ect id = COLL j SION(O)
IF objectid - 0 THEN RETURN
hitobject - COLLISiaN(objectid)
IF hitobject = -1 OR hitobject = -3 THEN

OBJECT.VY objectid, - (OBJECT.VY(objec11d))
ELSE1F hitobject - -2 OR hitobject - -4 THEN
OBJECT.VX objectid, -(OBJECT.VX(ob]ectid))
ELSE
OBJECT.VY objectid, -{OBJECT.VY(objectid))

OBJECT.VX objectid, -<OBJECT.VX{objectid))
OBJECT.VY hitobject, -(OBJECT.VY(hitobject
OBJECT.VX hitobject, -(OBJECT.VX(hitobject
END IF
OBJECT.START
RETURN
THE COLLISION STOP STATEMENT

There are times in a program when you may want to keep ON
COLLISION GOSUB from jumping down to a subroutine on every
collision. You can temporarily suspend ON COLLISION GOSUB by
using the COLLISION STOP statement. It uses this format:
COLLISION STOP
When BASIC executes COLLISION STOP in a program after an ON

COLLISION GOSUB statement, it keeps the collision queue up to
date by adding collisions until the queue is full. It doesn't let ON
COLLISION GOSUB know that a collision has occurred so the
program execution won't jump to the collision subroutine.
To make ON COLLISION GOSUB work again, you use another
COLLISION ON statement. If any collisions have entered the collision
queue since the COLLISION STOP statement, they will trigger ON
COLLISION GOSUB, and the program execution will immediately
jump to the collision subroutine.
Amiga BASIC Animation; Controlling Motion
343
THE COLLISION OFF STATEMENT
The COLLISION OFF statement turns off the collision queue
entirely. It uses this format:
COLLISION OFF
When BASIC executes COLLISION OFF, any collisions that take

place afterward aren't stored at all, and are forgotten by BASIC. Any
collisions that are stored m the queue before COLLISION OFF will
remain there. To start storing collisions in the collision queue again,
use a COLLISION ON statement.
MORE AMIGA ANIMATION TRICKS
Most of the Amiga BASIC animation statements are OBJECT

statements that move sprites and bobs around the playfield. There
are two other tricks available through Amiga BASIC to put motion
on your screen. One moves the playfield itself, the other creates
motion using true sequential-image animation.
SCROLLING THE PLAYFIELD WITH THE SCROLL STATEMENT

You can use the SCROLL statement to define a rectangular area
of the playfield and then scroll its contents vertically, horizontally, or
diagonally. It uses this format:
SCROLL (corner address) - (corner address), x shift, y shift
The corner addresses are the same as the corner addresses you
use with the OBJECTCLIP statement. The x and y coordinates can
be any integer from - 32768 to + 32767, making addresses like
(-1045,78} possible. These two addresses set the location of two
opposing corners of a scrolling rectangle. The x shift and y shift are
each integers from - 32768 to + 32767. You can use just an x-shift,
or just a y-shift, but if you omit the x-shift value, be sure to hold its
place with a comma.
The two corner addresses set the opposing corners of a rect
angular area on the output window. You can use them to create a
scrolling rectangle within the output window that's smaller than
the window, or to create a scrolling rectangle that covers the full
window. Although you can set addresses far outside the borders of
the output window you're using, any addresses outside the window
will be treated as if they're on the border of the window. For
example, if you create a scrolling rectangle with the corner
addresses (- 256, - 45) - (600,450) in a mode 1 window, you won't
actually create a scrolling rectangle larger than the window, you'll
create a rectangle the size of the full window.
344
The x-shift value specifies in pixels how far you want to
horizontally move the contents of the scroll rectangle. A positive
number means you want to move the contents to the right, a
negative number specifies a shift to the left. The y-shift value
specifies in pixels how far you want to vertically move the contents
of the scroll rectangle. A positive number specifies a shift down, a
negative number specifies a shift up. By using the two values
together in a SCROLL statement, you can create a diagonal shift.
For example, this statement shifts the contents of a scroll rectangle
in the upper left corner of the output window, moving them 20
pixels to the right and 30 pixels down:
scroll io,o 160,100), 20 , 30
When BASIC executes this statement, the contents shift diago

nally toward the lower right corner of the window.
When SCROLL shifts the contents of the scroll rectangle outside
the boundaries of the rectangle, it erases them. If you scroll the
same rectangle back in the opposite direction, the parts of the
rectangle that passed the boundaries return as just background
color. For example,
SCROLL (0 .0) - (1G0 ,100; , 20, 30
SCROLL (0 .0) - (160 ,100! , -20 , -30
scrolls the contents of the rectangle past the rectangle boundaries,

then returns them to their original position. Figure 13-5 (below)
shows the results.
Figure 13-5.
Three different stages of

a scroll The left picture
shows the window before
scroOing. the middle pic
ture shows the window
after the first SCROLL
statement, and the right
A single SCROLL statement does not actually scroll the contents picture shows the win
of the scroll rectangle. It shifts them in one instantaneous motion. dow after the last
To achieve a smooth scrolling effect, you need to use several SCROLL statement.
SCROLL statements in a row with small x-shift and y-shift values.
Amiga BASIC Animation. Controlling Motion
345
For example, the following program creates a background, then
scrolls a section of the background diagonally back and forth using
FOR. ..NEXT loops:
MakePiayfleld:
SCREEN 1, 320, 200, 5, 1
WINDON 2, . . 0, 1
FillText:
WIDTH "10
FOR i = 1 TO 100
PRINT "Kumquat ";

NEXT i
Scr-ol IBlock :
FOR i = 1 TO 15
FDR j - 1 TD 20: NEXT j
SCROLL (100, 25) - (200,110 1 , 1

NEXT i
FOR i - 1 TD 1S
FOR j - 1 TO 20: NEXT j
SCROLL (100, 25) - (200,110 -1,-1
NEXT i
GOTO ScrollBloct
The first FOR...NEXT loop in the program section ScroUBlock;

scrolls the contents of the scroll rectangle down and to the right.
The little FOR...NEXT loop nested inside it kills some time so
the scroll doesn't move too fast. To speed up the scroll, you can
substitute a lower value for 20; to slow it down, you can use a
higher value. The next FOR . .NEXT loop scrolls the contents
back to their original position. It also has a little timing loop
nested inside it.
You can use SCROLL to move the contents of a playneld while
there are objects on the playneld. SCROLL won't move the objects, it
will just move the playfield. However, you might get some strange
results if the objects on the playfield are bobs. Since they are ac
tually drawn into the playfield, they can leave a strange "graphics
residue" when the playfield scrolls underneath them. If the objects
on the playfield are sprites, they won't leave any graphics residue,
since sprites aren't part of the the playfield at all.
USING THE PUT STATEMENT FOR SEQUENTIAL ANIMATION

Sprites and bobs are good tools for external animationAmiga
BASIC provides movement and control statements to make the task
of animating these objects fairly simplebut they don't have any
internal motion. You can position sprites and bobs side-by-side to
make a larger object with internal motion, but lining up and
346
moving individual sprites and bobs can be tricky; it requires
keeping track of the location and movement of many separate
objects on the playfield at once. Using sequential-animation
techniques provided by the PUT statement makes the job easier.
Chapter 6 explains how GET and PUT can save a block of
graphics in a variable array and paste it elsewhere in the output
window. It also tells how to use GET to store a series of graphics
blocks in a two-dimensional array. If you store a series of blocks
containing continuous images, you can use PUT to sequentially
place those blocks on the screen, creating a moving object with in
ternal and external motion using sequential-animation techniques.
The following program uses GET to store four simple frames of a
bird flying. It then uses PUT in two FOR.. .NEXT loops to cycle
through the frames to make the bird look as if it's flying. Figure 13-6
(on the next page) shows the bird's motion.
Na k eW i ndow :
SCREEN 1 , 320, 200 ,2,1
WINDOW 2, , , 0, 1
CreateArray:
DIM bird( 11-10 ,3)
DrawFrames:
frame = 0
LINE (160,100) - STEP]-40,-40), 3
LINE (160,100) - STEP(40 ,-40) , 3

GOSUB GetFrame
CLS
f rame - 1
LINE (160,100) - STEP(-S0,-15), 3
LINE (160,100) - STEP(50 ,-15) , 3
GDSLJB GetFrame
CL5
frame - 2
LINE (160,1001 - STEP(-50,15] , 3
LINE (160,100] - 5TEP(50,15] , 3
GDSUB GetFrame
CLS
frame - 3
LINE { 160,100) - 5TEP(-40,40
LINE (160,100) - STEP(40,40]
GQSUB GetFrame
CLS
(continued)
347
x = o: y = o
SequenceFnames:
FDR i = 0 TD 3
PUT (x,y) , bird(0, i)

FDR j = 1 TD 200: NEXT j
PUT (x,y) , bird{0 , i )
NEXT i
FDR i = 2 TD 1 STEP -1
PUT (x,y), bird(O.i)

FOR j = 1 TD 200: NEXT j
PUT (x,y) , bird(0,i)
NEXT l
x=x+5: y = y + 5
GOTO SequenceFrames
GetFrame:
GET (100,55 220 , 145} , bird(0.frame
RETURN
Figure 13-6.
The program example

moves a flapping bird
across the playfield.
When you run the program, you'll see a brief flash in the center
of the window as it draws the four frames of a bird flying and saves
them with the GET statement. The stick bird (it is very simple) will
then appear in the upper left corner of the screen, flapping its
wings. As it flaps, it flies toward the lower right corner, and passes
beyond the output-window border.
To understand how the program works, take a look at its parts.
MakeWindow: creates a low-resolution, 2-bit-plane screen with a
full-sized window. CreateAnay: creates a two-dimensional array
named bird to hold the bird frames. The section that follows,
348
DrawFrames:, is divided into four parts, one for each frame of bird
flight. Each part sets a frame number, then draws the bird using
two simple LINE statements. It calls the subroutine GetFiame: that
saves the block containing the bird to the bird anay. It then clears
the screen for the next part.
The next section, SequenceFrames:, runs through the sequence
of frames to animate the bird. To initially position the bird, the line
before the SequenceFrames: section sets the x and y coordinates
for placing the PUT block equal to zero.
The two FOR.. .NEXT loops within the SequenceFrames: section
flap the bird's wings. The first loop flaps them down, the second
flaps them up. You'll notice that there are two identical PUT state
ments within each loop, separated by a small, nested FOR.. .NEXT
loop. The first PUT statement draws the bird's frame on Che screen.
The FOR.. NEXT loop pauses to keep the image on the screen. The
second PUT statement draws the same frame at the same location,
effectively erasing the bird's frame from the screen. (Recall that PUT
uses the XOR option by default to draw the frame. XORing the same
frame twice erases it completely. See Chapter 6 for the details.)
At the end of the two loops is a line that adds 5 to both the x and
y coordinates, which changes the PUT blocks location for each
loop, which makes the bird move down and to the right after
each wing-flap cycle. The next line loops the program back to
SequenceFrames:, which begins the wing-flap cycle over again.
There are advantages and disadvantages to this kind of animation.
It takes a lot of memory especially if you use a deep screen, a large
frame size, and many frames. It does flicker as you draw the
original frames, and it takes a lot of programming work to draw
frames that look more realistic than the stick bird you just saw.
Nevertheless, it does give you internal motion in an object that can
move around the screen. If you want to get rid of the initial drawing
flicker, you can draw the frames in one program and save them to
disk, then load them for the actual animation program. (You'll have
to spend some time getting familiar with the BASIC disk file
statements to do this.)
In this chapter you've learned how to limit an object's

motion, and how to read an object's location and speed.
You've also learned how to handle collisions between
objects, how to scroll the playfield, and how to use sequen
tial animation. You should experiment further with the
animation statements you learned herethey are the
building blocks of animation that, when assembled in new
and creative ways, can create some very impressive video
animation on your monitor screen.
Amiga BASIC Animation Controlling Motion
349
AFTERWORD
THE FUTURE: AMIGA'S CREATIVE POSSIBILITIES
After you master Deluxe Paint, Deluxe Music, Deluxe Video,

Amiga BASIC, and other Amiga graphics, music, and animation
tools, will you find yourself up against the wall of ennui with no
place left to go? Not likely. The programs that are available now for
the Amiga are just the beginning. As more programmers learn to
take advantage of the Amiga's unique abilities, you'll have more
and more software to play with.
The Amiga has many powers that have not yet been tapped.
For example, one of the Amiga's little-used features is the hold and
modify (HAM) mode of graphics display, which allows the Amiga
to put all of its 4096 colors on the screen at once (with a few limita
tions). Although some video digitizers can create HAM pictures
with incredible shading, there are no graphics programs out now
that let you create and print your own HAM pictures from scratch.
But as demand increases for added colors, surely programs will be
written to satisfy that demand.
Many of the Amiga's animation powers are also little used in
today's application programs. For example, the ability to finely scroll
a large playfield around the monitor screen isn't used in either
Deluxe Video or Aegis Animator. Also unused are the Amiga's
system-software routines, which allow a programmer to build an
animated character by tying together a series of moving objects to
create very realistic motion. Animation programs are new products
on the market, so as competition develops, you can expect to see
more powerful and refined animation applications for the Amiga.
Musicians are naturally drawn to the Amiga to take advantage
of its sound-sampling capabilities, and to use its multitasking
power to control and record activities on networks of MIDI instru
ments. Many of these musicians are also programmers, so in the
future you can expect to see programs that let you build very
sophisticated instruments using the Amiga's internal sound chan
nels, programs that easily turn your keyboard performances into
printed scores, and programs that teach you music notation.
Many of the Amiga's future programs aren't possible to foresee;
as users develop new needs and desires, programmers will rise to
meet the challenge. Programmers may exercise the internal hard
ware and Amiga's system software so thoroughly that they'll
discover capabilities the Amiga's creators didn't know were there.
No matter how much software and hardware you add to your
Amiga, though, the chief goal is to be able to ignore it all and work
on your own artistic creations. Any computer, no matter how
fascinating in its own right, is just a tool; and the purpose of any
tool is to transform its user's ideas into reality as easily and beau
tifully as possible.
351
APPENDIX A: AMIGA BASIC
STATEMENT FORMATS
This appendix lists Amiga BASIC graphics, sound, and

animation statements and functions along with their
formats. They are grouped by function, so you can find the
graphics statements together in one section, the sound
statements together in another section, and the animation
statements together in a third section. Each statement and
function has a short description to jog your memory if
you've forgotten what the statement or function does.
GRAPHICS
CREATING WINDOWS, SCREENS, AND PALETTES
SCREEN
screen ID number, width, height, depth, resolution mode
This statement creates a screen, setting its size, depth, and

resolution.
SCREEN CLOSE screen ID number
This statement closes the specified screen and removes it

from memory.
WINDOW window ID number, title, (corner address) - (corner
address), w1ndow-features number, screen ID number
This statement creates a window on the screen you specify, using

the size, position, and optional-features values you specify for
the window.
WINDOW OUTPUT window ID number
This statement makes the specified window the output window.
WINDOW CLOSE window ID number
This statement closes the specified window and removes it

from memory.
PALETTE color-register number, red strength, green strength,
blue strength
This statement sets the color in the specified color register.
CGLDR foreground-color number, bac k ground~coI or number
This statement sets the background and foreground colors for

subsequent graphics and text commands.
CLS
This statement clears the output window, filling it with the

background color.
354
DRAWING STATEMENTS
PSET (address), col or-register number
This statement colors the pixel at the specified address using the
color in the specified color register. If no color-register number is
specified, it uses the current foreground color.
PRESET (address), col or -reg i 5 Ier number
This statement colors the pixel at the specified address using the
color in the specified color register. If no color-register number is
specified, it uses the current background color.
LINE (starting address) - (ending address),

color-register number, box op lions
This statement draws a line from the starting address to the ending
address using the color in the specified color register. It can also
create filled or hollow boxes.
CIRCLE (center address), radius, color-register number,
arc starting point, arc ending point, aspect
This statement draws a circle around the center address using the
specified radius and the color in the specified color register. It can
also draw ovals and arcs.
AREA (address)
This statement sets a point m a polygon to be filled by the

AREAFILL statement.
AREAFILL mode number
This statement connects points set by preceding AREA statements

and fills in the area they define.
PAINT (address), paint color-register number, border
color-register number
This statement fills in an enclosed area with the color in the

specified color register, starting at a point specified by the address.
PAINT will recognize borders that use the specified border color-
register number.
PATTERN Jine mask, pattern-mask array name
This statement creates line and fill patterns that are used when
line-drawing and fill statements put graphics in the output window.
MISCELLANEOUS STATEMENTS AND FUNCTIONS
PRINT expression list
This statement prints the string(s) of characters in the expression

list in the output window.
355
LOCATE Jjne number, column number
This statement puts the text cursor at the specified line and
column positions.
:sri in
This function returns the line number of the text cursor's current
position.
POS(O)
This function returns the column number of the text cursor's

current position.
NINDDW (condi tion number)
Depending on the value of the condition number, this function

can return the window ID number of the current input or output
window, the height, width, and color capacity of the output win
dow, the pixel address of the text cursor in the output window, or
pointers to system-software addresses.
POINT {pixel address
This function returns the color-register number of the specified

pixel.
GET {corner address) - (corner address),
array name(index number)
This statement stores the pixels within the rectangle set by the
opposing corner addresses in the specified array.
PUT (address), array namefindex number/, merge choice
This statement puts the pixels stored in the specified array in the
output window at the address specified, merging them with the
pixels they cover using the specified merge choice.
SOUND
MUSIC
BEEP
This statement produces a short beep and flashes the screen.
SOUND frequency, duration, volume, audio channel
This statement plays a tone at the specified frequency and volume

for the specified duration, using the audio channel specified.
SOUND WAIT
This statement queues all subsequent SOUND statements without

playing them.
356
SOUND RESUME
This statement plays all the SOUND statements queued by the

SOUND WAIT statement.
UAVE audio channel, integer-array name
This statement creates a new waveform in the specified audio

channel using the information contained in the specified integer
array.
SPEECH
5AY phoneme-code string, speci ficat ion-array name
This statement converts the phoneme code string into speech

using the speech characteristics set in the specification array.
TRANSLATES ("text string'11
This function translates the text string and returns the phoneme
codes necessary for the SAY statement.
ANIMATION
CREATING AND MOVING OBJECTS
OBJECT.SHftPE object id number, object-definition siring
Using this syntax, this statement creates an object in memory from

data stored in the object-definition string.
OBJECT.X object id number, x coordinate
This statement sets the x coordinate of the specified object's

location.
OBJECT.Y object id number, y coordinate
This statement sets the y coordinate of the specified object's

location.
OBJECT.ON object id number, object id number, . . .
This statement makes the specified objects (or all objects, if no

object ID numbers are specified) visible in the output window.
OBJECT.VX object id number, x veloc1 ty
This statement sets the x velocity of the specified object.
OBJECT.VY object id number, y velocity
This statement sets the y velocity of the specified object.
357
OBJECT.START object id number, abject id number, . . .
This statement sets specified objects (or all objects, if no object

ID numbers are specified) in motion.
OBJECT.AX object id number, x acceleration
This statement sets the amount of acceleration along the x

(horizontal) axis for the specified object.
OBJECT.AY obj ec t id number, y acceleration
This statement sets the amount of acceleration along the y

(vertical) axis for the specified object.
OBJECT.STOP object id number, object id number, . . .
This statement freezes the motion of the specified objects (or all
objects, if no object ID numbers are specified).
OBJECT.DFF object id number, object id number, . . .
This statement makes the specified objects (or all objects, if no

object ID numbers are specified) invisible.
OBJECT.CLOSE object id number, object id number, . . .
This statement removes the specified objects (or all objects, if no

object ID numbers are specified) from memory.
CONTROLLING OBJECTS
OBJECT. SHAPE dupl i cate obj ect id number , or igmal
object id number
Using this syntax, this statement creates a duplicate object in

memory of an existing object.
OBJECT.PLANES object id number, PlanePick value,
PlaneOnO-ff value
This statement changes the colors of an existing object.
OBJECT.CLIP (corner address) - (corner address)
This statement sets an invisible rectangle in the output window

that serves as a motion boundary for objects within it.
OBJECT.X(object id number)
This function returns the x coordinate of the specified object's

current location.
OBJECT.Yfobject id number)
This function returns the y coordinate of the specified object's

current location.
OBJECT.VX(object id number)
This function returns the x velocity of the specified objects

current motion.
358
OBJECT.VYfobjec! id number)
This function returns the y velocity of the specified object's

current motion.
OBJECT.HIT object id number, type va1ue, hit va1 ue
This statement defines the object type of an object, and defines the
types of objects it can hit.
OBJECT.PRIORITY object id number, priority value
This statement sets the collision priority for an object, which

determines which of two colliding objects passes over the top of
the other.
COLLISION ON
This statement turns on the collision queue.
N COLLISION GOSUB Jjne name/number
This statement causes Amiga BASIC to jump to the specified

program line whenever a collision occurs.
COLLISION/id number)
This function returns collision information from the collision queue.
COLLISION STOP
This statement suspends the operation of the collision queue.
COLLISION OFF
This statement turns off the collision queue and disables ON

COLLISION GOSUB.
SCROLL (corner address) - (corner address), x-shift, y-shift
This statement shifts the contents of the specified rectangle by the

amount specified.
359
APPENDIX B: COMPANIES MENTIONED
IN THIS BOOK
This appendix lists companies mentioned in this book,

followed by the company's address and a list of their
products discussed in this book.
Aegis Development Mimetics Corporation

2210 WlJshire #277 P.O. Box 60238 Station A
Santa Monica, CA 90403 Paio Alto, CA 94306
Products: Aegis Animator. Products: SoundScape,
Aegis Images SoundScape sound sampler
A-Squared Systems Okidata

10 Skyway Lane 532 Fellowship Road
Oakland, CA 94619 ML Laurel, NJ 08054
Product: Amiga LIVE' Iramegrabber Product: Okimate 20 printer
Casio, Incorporated Pioneer Video, Incorporated

15 Gardner Road 200 West Grand Avenue
Fairfield, NJ 07006 MontvaJe, NJ 07645
Products: AS-20 speaker, CZ-101 Products: CLD-900 LaserDisc
synthesizer, CZ-1000 synthesizer player, IU-04 LaserDisc computer
interlace
Commodore-Amiga. Incorporated
983 University Avenue #D Sony Corporation of America
Los GatOS, CA 95030 Sony Drive
Products: Amiga 1000 computer. Park Ridge, NJ 07656
Amiga 1300 Genlock Board, Amiga Product: KV-1311 video monitor
BASIC, AmigaDOS. Amiga
Teac Corporation of America
Kickstart, Amiga Workbench.
7733 Telegraph Road
Graphiciaft, Textcraft
MontebeUo, CA 90640
Electronic Arts Product: TASCAM Ministudio
1820 Gateway Drive Porta One cassette recorder
San Mateo, CA 94404
Video Vision Associates Limited
Products: DeluxeMusic, DeluxePaint,
7 Waveriy Place
DeluxeVideo, Instant Music
Madison, NJ 07940
Epson America. Incorporated Product: Space Archive
2780 Lomita Boulevard LaserDiscs
Torrance, CA 90505
Xerox Corporation
Product: JX-80 printer
901 Page Avenue
The Micro Forge Fremont, CA 94538
398 Grant Street, 3 E Products: Diablo C-150 inkjet
Atlanta, GA 30312-2227 printer, Xerox 4020 inkjet printer
Product: RAM cards
360
AmigaDOS (Disk Operating System).
INDEX
21. 23
CLI commands, 23
Exec, 19-20
Page numbers for illustrations are
RAM. 21
in italics
Amplifier, 180
Amplitude (loudness), 176.
186.188
Aegis Animator. 264, 289- Animation. 252-325. See also
90, 351 Deluxe Video
Amiga BASIC, 23. 41, 45, 351 fundamentals, 252-62 (see also
Amiga BASIC, animation, 296-325. Illusion of motion;
See also Object Editor Perspective)
controlling motion, 328-49 (see IFF standard, 291
also Appendix A: specific interactive. 262. 267-68
statements and functions) internal motion, 26567
creating a motion boundary, 328- Anti-aliasing, 39
29 (see aiso OBJECT CLIP Area pattern, 138-41
statement) applying an area pattern. 13941
drawers, storing files in, putting the area pattern mask into
308-9 an integer array, 138-39
gels, 264 AREA statement, 129
handling object collisions, 333-44 AREAFILL statement, 130-32
(see also Appendix A; specific filling a shape with a
statements and functions) pattern, 132
placing and moving objects. 306 Array, musical scale. 233-35
19 (see a/so specific traditional music notation. 234
sta temen ts) Array, PUT and GET variable, 159-
playfields, 263-67, 301 64. See also PUT and GET
reading an object's location and statements
velocity. 330-33, 333 (see also calculating size. 161-62

specific object functions) copying several equal-sized
scrolling, 263 graphics blocks in one array,
tricks, 344-49 162
Amiga BASIC, graphics, 86-169. See copying several unequal-sized
also Appendix A; Area graphics blocks in the same
pattern: Color palette. array, 163
Screen; Windows storing a graphics block, 162
color registers, 107-12 storing graphics data, 160-
image creation, 114-41 (see also 61, 261
Graphics cursor and pixel Array, specification, 242-55. See
addressing) also SAY statement
list and output windows. 86-89 choosing the channel assignment,
miscellaneous graphics and 244-45
functions, 144-69 (see also choosing inflection or monotone,
Appendix A; Character 243
addressing; Fonts; Graphics, choosing multiple SAY options.
copying and pasting; 245
Graphics, interactive) choosing synchronous or
Workbench screen window, 92 asynchronous speech, 245
Amiga BASIC, sound, 222-48. See choosing voice gender, 243
also Appendix A, specific setting base pitch. 242
SOUND statements; Speech, setting sampling frequency. 243-
generation 44
musical scale array, 233-35 setting speaking rate. 243
playing a musical score, 235-38 setting volume. 244
synchronization, 227-28 Array, waveform. See Waveform
table
ASCII (American Standard Code for
Information Interchange), 193
Index
361
B Commodore-Amiga, 79, 80
BEEP statement. 222 Component motion, 266-67
waveform of, 222 Console, 7, 7
Binary line mask, 136-37 custom chips, 9
Bit planes, 57. 95-96 internal disk drive, 10-11
Blend mode, 65. 70 memory chips, 10
creation of rainctouds, 77 motherboard, 8
Blitter, 48 Motorola 68000 microprocessor, 9
Bob, 301 power supply. 7-8
Brush modes, Deluxe Paint, 63-72 Creating precise drawings. 60-63
blend, 65 coordinates command and brush
blend to create rainclouds, 70 position. 60
color, 63-64 grid alignment. 61-63
cycle, 65 SHIFT key and drawing straight
object. 63 lines. 60-61
object and color to outline figures, Cycle mode, 65
66-67
replace, 64
shade,64
D
Deluxe Music, 23, 196-213
shade to create shadow, 71-72
capabilities, 198-206
smear. 64
recording, 209-12
smear to create sandy
special effects using Tascam
background. 68
Ministudio Porta One
text brush to create outlined
text, 67
recorder, 210-11
synchronizing scores, 211-12
tips, 208-9
use with MIDI, 206
Casio CZ-101 synthesizer, 218 Deluxe Paint, 23. 41, 45, 48. 49, 54-
Casio CZ-1000 synthesizer, 218 83. 263, 265. See also Brush
Character addressing, 144-45 modes; Color palette
line and column number choosing screen resolution and
ing, 145 depth. 56-57
CIRCLE statement, 124-29, 125 creating background and
circle measured in radians, 127 matching objects for
creating arcs, 126, 126 animation. 271-74
creating circles, 125 creating precise drawings and
creating ovals. 127-29 color-cycle animation, 274-79
CLI (Command Line Interpreter), 22, creating sequenced drawings for
74 animation, 279-85
CLS Statement, 119 creating a work disk, 55-56
COLLISION!) function, 339-41 photographing, 78
collision queue, 339. 340 printing Deluxe Paint pictures. 74-
COLLISION OFF statement, 344 78
COLLISION ON statement, 339-41 tricks, 73-74
COLLISION STOP statement. 343 Deluxe Video. 23, 45, 264
Color. 28-31 and Deluxe Paint, 271-85 (see also
HIS (Hue, Intensity, Saturation) Deluxe Paint)
creation, 30-31 blitter. 270, 275
primary, 28-29 color cycle. 274-79, 276, 277, 279
RGB creation, 29 library disks, 290
Color mode, 63-64. 66-67 making scripts readable, 286, 287
Color palette, 46-47, 107-12 recording onto videotape. 287-89
design, 57-59 sequential drawing. 279-85, 280,
HAM (Hold and Modify), 47 281, 282. 283
palette window, 58 synchronizing effects with sound,
picture using HAM mode for 285
shading, 47 Deluxe Video Framer, 279, 280. 282
range, 59 Deluxe Video Maker, 279, 283, 284
COLOR statement, 108-9 Denise (chip), 264
changing background color, 109 Direct Memory Access (DMA), 10-11
changing foreground color, 109 Drawing pictures, 48
with PRINT statement. 151-52 and Agnus chip. 48
storing color, 110 blitter, 48
Index
362
Duplicating objects. See Hardware, sound
OBJECT.SHAPE statement speakers, 215-16
Duration, 186. 187. 235 stereo, 15
and SOUND statement, 225 Hawkins, Trip, xi
Hexadecimal numbers. 136-37
E
Electronic Arts. 212. 270. 290 I
Exec, 19-20 Illusion of motion, 252-57, 253
and Kickstart disk. 19-20 background, 254-55
and ROM. 19 moving objects, 255-57
External disk drive, 16 Infinite loop, 122
Interlacing. 94
Intuition, 21, 45
F
user-interface routines, 21
Firmware. 10
Fonts, using different sizes, 145-46
Frequency (of sounds), 176 K
and SOUND statement, 223-25 Keyboard, 5-6, 6
Functions. See also Appendix A and
specific functions
Libraries and devices, 20, 263

G Line pattern, 136-38
Gels. 264-67 applying a line pattern. 137
bobs, 265 converting a binary line mask into
sprites, 264-65. 300 a hexadecimal number, 136-
GET statement, 159, 167-69 37
Graphicraft, 263 LINE statement. 122-24
Graphics, copying and pasting, 159- creating boxes, 123-24, 124
69 See also Array. PUT and creating lines. 122-23, 123
GET variable; GET LOCATE statement, 148-49
statement; PUT statement
examples using GET and PUT.
167-69 M
Graphics cursor and pixel Memory Chips, 10. See also RAM;
ROM
addressing, 114-41. See also
specific graphics statements.
MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital
Interface). 190-93. 192
Multi-sided figure creation
adaptor, 218
absolute addressing, 11415
creating a MIDI ring. 192
relative addressing, 115 16
messages, 193
window boundaries, 11718. 117
Graphics, features, 41 52. See also
physical standard, 191-92
Color palette; Drawing

Mixers, 189
Mixing two pictures, 51 52, 53
pictures; Mixing two
Modem. 13, 17, 193
pictures; Picture detail;
Monitors. 5. 31-41, 80-81
Scrolling; Text, creation
cathode-ray tube. 32
Graphics, interactive. 153-58. See
color, 34-35 35
also POINT function;
composite, 5
WINDOW0 function
CRT electron gun, 32
monochrome, 31 34
H phosphor dots of a color monitor,
Hardware, 4-17. 4. See also 34
Console; Keyboard; Monitors; ports. 5
Mouse raster scanning, 33 34. 33
manufacturers (mentioned in text). RGB, 5. 80
360-61 television, 5
Hardware, animation, 291 94 transferring a video image to other
Amiga 1300 Genlock board, 292 media, 35-41 (see also
external RAM cards, 291-92 Photographing the monitor
laser disc players, 293-94 screen; Printing video
Hardware, graphics, 80-83 See also images; Videotape)
Monitors; Printers Mouse. 6
Amiga Live! framegrabber, 83
Index
363
Multi-sided figure creation, 129-32. PATTERN statement, 135-41, 140.
132. See also AREA See also Area pattern, Lint*
statement; AREAFILL pattern
statement applying a line pattern. 137. 137
Musical score, playing. See Amiga changing pattern colors, 141
BASIC, sound conversion of binary line mask into
a hexadecimal number, 136-
37
N
and creation of line pattern. 136
NTSC (National Television Systems
Peripherals. 11, 14-17
Committee). 14
external disk drives, 16-17
external RAM. 17
impact dot-matrix printers. 15
Object Editor, 296-301 ink-jet printers, 15
drawing an object, 299-301, 300 laser printers, 16
modification of, 297-99 letter-quality printers, 15
Object mode, 63, 66-67 thermal-transfer printers, 15
OBJECT.AX statement, 316-17 Perspective, 257-62
OBJECT.AY statement. 316-17 three-dimensional. 258-60, 259,
OBJECT.CLIP statement, 329, 330 260
OBJECT.CLOSE statement. 318-19 two-and-a-half-dimensional, 260-

OBJECT.HIT statement, 334-37, 62, 261
337 two-dimensional. 257-58, 257
OBJECT.OFF statement, 317-18 Photographing the monitor screen,
OBJECT.ON statement, 311-12. 312 36-37
OBJECT.PLANES statement disadvantages, 37
to change colors, 320 Picture detail. 42-45. See also
example, 325 Resolution
setting PlanePick and PlaneOnOff pixels, 42
values, 323-25 Pioneer CLD-900, 293
OBJECT.PRIORITY statement, 337- Pioneer IU-04 computer interface
38 293
OBJECT.SHAPE statement, 307-8 Pitch, 186. 188, 235
to duplicate objects, 319-20 Pixel addressing. See Graphics
OBJECT.START statement. 315 cursor and pixe! addressing
OBJECT.STOP statement, 317 Playfield. 271-75
OBJECT.VX0 function, 331-33 Playfield, animation, 301-4, 305
OBJECT.VX statement, 312-15. 313. choosing colors, 303-4
314 screen depth, 302-3
OBJECT.VY0 function, 331-33 screen resolution, 302
OBJECT-VY statement. 312-15. 373 POINT function, 158
314 Ports and connectors, 11-14. See
OBJECT.X0 function. 330-31 also Peripherals
OBJECT.X statement, 309-11, 310 audio, 13-14
OBJECT.Y0 function. 330-31 on back of console, 12
OBJECT.Y statement, 309-11, 310 controller, 12
ON COLLISION GOSUB statement, disk-drive, 13
338-39 expansion connector, 12
Open machine, 12 internal RAM connector, 11
Output window, 105-6 keyboard. 13
MIDI, 191
parallel. 13
RGB, 14
PAINT statement, 133-34
on right and front side of console
to fill in a circle. 134. 135 11
PALETTE statement, 109-112 serial. 13. 192
creating different palettes for TV modulator, 14
different sceens, 111-12 video, 14
16 primary color strengths and Preferences, 52, 74-8
corresponding PALETTE
Change Printer screen, 74-76 78
values, 110 75. 76
two different screens with two Graphic Select screen, 76-78, 77
unique screen palettes. 112 PRESET statement, 120-22
Palettes. See Color palette
Index
364
PRINT statement.147
with COLOR statement. 151-52. SAY statement, 243-47. See also
152 Array, specification
Printers, 15, 16.81-82 examples. 246-47
Diablo C-150 and Xerox 4020, 82 phoneme codes, 241-42
Epson JX-80. 82 Screen (horizontal areas), 45
Okimate 20, 81 SCREEN CLOSE statement, 98
Printing SCREEN statement, 93-98
printer driver, 52, 74 conserving memory, 96
Printing Deluxe Paint pictures, 74- depth, 95-96
78. See also Preferences examples, 96-97
Printing video images five simultaneous screens, 97. 97
converting color to black and ID number, 93
white. 39-40.40 memory requirements, 96
fidelity, 37-38 mode 1 screen. 95, 95
printing in color, 40-41 resolution mode, 93-94
PSET statement, 119-22 width and height, 94-95
with trigonometric command, 121 Screens. 90-91. 93-98- See also
PUT statement. 164-65 SCREEN CLOSE statement;
array name and index. 164-65 SCREEN statement
merge choices, 165 67 title bar, 90. 91
sequential animation, 346-49. 348 SCROLL statement, 342
setting PUT address. 164 scrolling the playheld. 344. 345
Scrolling, 50
Sequenced drawings, 266
R Sequencer, 187
RAM {Random Access Memory), 10
Serial printer, 13
and animation storage, 291-92
Shade mode, 64. 71-72
and bit planes, 57 creation of shadow, 72
and fonts, 49
Sizing gadget, 118
and resolution. 44
Smear mode, 64, 68-69
and sequencers. 181 creation of sandy background. 69
and window refreshing, 102-3
Software, 17-23. 29. See also
and Workbench, 21 AmigaDOS; CL1 (Command
Recording, animation. 287-89 Line Interpreter); Exec;
quality. 288 Intuition; Libraries and
Recording, Deluxe Music scores, devices: Workbench
209-12 manufacturers (mentioned in text),
Recording, sound, 188-90 360-61
Replace mode, 64 Software, animation. See Aegis
Resolution Animator; Amiga BASIC,
affect on memory, 44-45 animation; Deluxe Video
animation, 302 Software, graphics, 79-80. See aJso
anti-aliasing, 39, 39 Amiga BASIC; Deluxe Paint
depth. 56-57 Aegis Images, 79
font size, 146, 147 Graphicraft, 79
"jaggies." 39, 38 IFF (Interchange File Format)
mixing. 45. 45 Graphics Standard. 80
picture using high-resolution Software, sound. See Amiga BASIC.
pixel. 44 sound; Deluxe Music
picture using low-resolution IFF music standard, 214
pixel. 43 Instant Music, 212
SCREEN statement, 93-94 Sound. See also MIDI; Recording;
Workbench display using 640- Sounds, electronic;
by-200 resolution screen, 42 Synthesized music;
RGB monitor. 5. 80-81 Synthesized speech
analog. 80-81 characteristics of, 176-78
controls of the Preferences and hearing. 174-76
program, 29 sampled, 185-87
digital, 80-81 samplers, 217
ROM (Read Only Memory), 10, 19 sine, square, and sawtooth
waves, 177
Index
365
Sound, synchronization. See Amiga V
BASIC, sound; SOUND Video-signal converter, 12
RESUME statement; SOUND Video Vision Associates Space
WAIT statement Archive laser disc, 294
SOUND RESUME statement, 228 Videotape, 36
SOUND statement, 223-28 Voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO).
choosing audio channel, 226 182
setting duration, 225 Volume, 235
setting frequency, 223-25, 224 and SOUND statement, 226
setting volume, 226
SOUND WAIT statement, 227-28
Sounds, electronic, 179-81 w
WAVE statement, 229-33. See also
Speakers, 179-80
Speech, generation, 238-47 {see Waveform table
also SAY statement;

Waveform. 177, 183-87, 222, 183,
TRANSLATES!) function; 230, 231, 232
Statements. See Appendix A and Waveform table, 229-33. 238
specific statements
assigning to audio channel, 232-
33
Stereo, 180-81
Synthesized music, 181-87. See aJso calculation, 231-32
Sequencer; Synthesizers creation of. 229-30
Synthesized speech, 188 reading data of, into waveform
Synthesizers
array, 230-31
WINDOW CLOSE statement, 106-7
analog, 182
WINDOW!) function, 153-57
digital, 182-87
digital-to-analog converter (D-to-A examples. 154-57. 155, 157, 158
converter), 184 table, 154

WINDOW OUTPUT statement, 106
WINDOW statement, 98-105
examples, 104-5
Tape recorders, 189 features, 101-3
Text, creation, 48-50, 49 ID number. 99
and background, 50 opposing corner addresses, 99
font. 48-49 pixel-addressing system. 100
Text cursor screen ID number, 103 4
locating with CSRLIN and POS(O) window in upper corner of screen.
functions, 150-51 101
Textcraft, 49 window with all possible features.
Timbre. 177, 186. 187, 188, 222 103
Transformer IBM emulator, 16 Windows, 91-92, 98-107. See also
TRANSLATES!) function. 239-41 Output window: WINDOW
alternate spellings for correct CLOSE statement; WINDOW
punctuation, 240-41 OUTPUT statement;
using punctuation with, 240 WINDOW statement
Trigonometry. 121-22 Workbench, 21-22, 48, 52, 22
and Intuition, 22
Index
366
About the Author
A classical oboist by training, Michael Boom became involved with
computers in 1980, when he purchased an Atari 800. He is the
author of Understanding Atari Graphics, How to Use Atari
Computers, and How to Use the Commodore 64, all published as
Alfred Handy Guides. He has also written for Compute! magazine.
For the past two years, Michael has worked as a consultant in the
microcomputer field, including a year as the music consultant for
Commodore-Amiga. Michael Boom currently lives in Oakland,
California.
The manuscript for this book was prepared and submitted to
Microsoft Press in electronic form. Text files were processed and
formatted using Microsoft Word.
Cover design by Ted Mader and Associates

Interior text design by Woodfin Design
Illustrations by Rick Bourgoin
Polyscope images courtesy of Dan Silva
Principal typographer; Russell Steele
Principal artist: Becky Johnson
The screen photographs were created on the Commodore Amiga

and photographed by Nick Gregoric.
Text composition by Microsoft Press in Serifa 45 with display

in Serifa 65, using the CCI-400 composition system and the
Mergenthaler Linotron 202 digital phototypesetter.

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THE AMIGA

Copyright 1986 by Michael Boom

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Printed and bound in the United States of America.

British Cataloging in Publication Data available

Apple:" is a trademark of Apple Computer, Incorporated, and Macintosh"1 is a trademark licensed to

This book is dedicated to ail the characters at Amiga, who

SECTION 1 THE MACHINE

Afterword The Future: Amiga's Creative Possibilities 351

Electronic media diversify our worid by giving us almost instan

A book that touches on as many different subjects as this one

HOW TO USE THIS BOOK

WHAT YOU NEED TO USE THE EXAMPLES IN THIS BOOK

In Figure 1-1, you see the four main components of a basic

The four basic hardware

Amiga computer system

SECTION 1: THE MACHINE

A Close Look at the Amiga

Figure 1-2. Function keys HELP key

The special keys of the

CTRL key ALT keys Cursor keys Numeric keypad

The keyboard is connected to the Amiga with a coiled extension

SECTION 1: THE MACHINE

Power supply Motherboard Figure 1-3.

Inside the Amiga con

The power supply

A Close Look at the Amiga

Figure 1-4. ROM chips

tom chips, and RAM and

RAM chips The 68000 microprocessor

The three custom chips go by the names of Agnus, Denise, and

SECTION 1: THE MACHINE

The custom chips

A Close Look at the Amiga

The internal disk drive

SECTION 1: THE MACHINE

PORTS AND CONNECTORS

The ports and connectors

Internal RAM connector Controller ports Expansion connector

The internal RAM connector

A Close Look at the Amiga

The expansion connector

The ports and connectors

on the back of the

Disk-drive port Audio ports TV modulator port

SECTION 1: THE MACHINE

The parallel port

The disk-drive port

The serial port

The audio ports

A Close Look at the Amiga

The RGB port

The TV modulator port

The video port

SECTION V THE MACHINE

Impact dot-matrix printers

A Close Look at the Amiga

External disk drives

Each 3Kz-inch external drive gives you 876 more kilobytes of

SECTION V THE MACHINE