1.6 Important Older Material
Description
This article is from the Amiga Books FAQ, by Marc Atkin with numerous contributions by others.
1.6 Important Older Material
o Commodore Business Machines: Amiga ROM Kernel Reference Manual: Libraries and Devices (1st edition; white cover) Addison-Wesley , 1986. ISBN 0-201-11078-4
Covers the Amiga System Software up to Version 1.2. Gives a good introduction to programming Amiga graphics and I/O. Many examples, mostly in C (Source Code can be found on Fisk Disk ???). Since the operating system has evolved quite a bit since 1986, this and the following books' value is now mostly nostalgia...
o Commodore Business Machines: Amiga Intuition Reference Manual (1st edition; white cover) Addison-Wesley , 1986. ISBN 0-201-11076-8
Covers Intuition programming through Workbench 1.2. A wonderfully gentle introduction to programming user interfaces on the Amiga. Contains a lot of information on the philosophy of the Amiga interface. Basic knowledge of C required. Now superseded by the newer "RKM: Libraries" and "User Interface Style Guide".
o Commodore Business Machines: Amiga ROM Kernel Reference Manual: Exec (1st edition; white cover) Addison-Wesley , 1986. ISBN 0-201-11099-7
Covers Exec programming through Kickstart/Workbench 1.2. The nitty gritty of the Amiga kernel: Basic data structures, tasks, memory allocation and the like. Now superseded by the newer "RKM: Libraries".
o Commodore Business Machines: Amiga Hardware Reference Manual (1st edition; white cover) Addison-Wesley , 1986. ISBN 0-201-11077-6
The hardware bangers manual for the original chipset (OCS). Explains what all the hardware registers mean and how to get them to work for you. Some assembly examples. Since Commodore now officially dissuades from directly accessing the hardware, and has no plans for publishing an AGA hardware manual, this book is actually still fairly useful for those who have to know how their computer works on the hardware level.
o Commodore Business Machines: Amiga ROM Kernel Reference Manual: Includes and Autodocs (2nd edition; blue cover) Addison-Wesley , 1989. ISBN 0-201-18177-0
Covers version Kickstart/Workbench Version 1.3. A print-out of all the include files and autodocs (on-line documentation) for all the Amiga library functions (except DOS). Contains summaries and call parameters for all the functions. This information had previously been distributed amongst the Libraries, Exec, and Intuition Rom Kernel Reference Manual in the 1.2 release.
o Commodore Business Machines: Amiga ROM Kernel Reference Manual: Libraries and Devices (2nd edition; blue cover) Addison-Wesley , 1989. ISBN 0-201-18187-8
All the introductory text and examples from the Kickstart Version 1.2 ROM Kernel Reference Manuals, revised and updated for Version 1.3. All examples are available in executable and source code form from Fish disk #344.
o Commodore Business Machines: Amiga Hardware Reference Manual (2nd edition; blue cover) Addison-Wesley , 1989. ISBN 0-201-18157-6
As far as I know, this manual is basically identical to the 1.2 release described above (although it claims to be updated to release 1.3).
o Commodore Business Machines: AmigaDOS V2.0 Native Developer Update Commodore, [year?]. CATS part number: NATDEV20 $20.00
The 2.0 Native Developer Update is a must-have for any Amiga programmer. This four-disk set contains the final 2.0 function Autodocs, final 2.0 C and assembler Amiga include files, linker libs (Amiga.lib, debug.lib, ddebug.lib) FD files, offsets, a great deal of 2.0 example code, and the "Software Toolkit II" disk full of the latest Amiga debugging tools. (This disk set has been replaced by the new V3.1 Amiga Developer Update but is still very useful for its 2.0 example code).
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