Computers

Amiga

The Amiga 1000 debuted in 1985, with 4096 colors and amazing graphics in the days of monochrome IBMs. AmigaDOS combined a powerful shell with a GUI before Windows or the Mac and was the computer of choice for graphics professionals and video gamers. It has been used to create the special effects for many movies, including the original Jurassic Park. Amiga was the first home computer to offer true multitasking, somthing Windows still can't always do right, and was clearly far ahead of its time. Unfortunately, Commodore, who made the Amiga, went bankrupt several years ago, and the last Amiga hardware made was in 1992. It has taken the rest of the computer world a decade to catch up to where the Amiga was then in many respects, but under new ownership now, Amiga, Inc. is planning a new Amiga. The new Amiga is not just an OS, but a development environment, very scalable and for use in everything from computers to palm pilots to smart appliances. AmigaOS5 is due out within the next year and promises to once again take a giant leap ahead in technology. AmigaOS5 will be platform independent...you can run it on a computer with a x86 or PPC or DEC-Alpha processor, or any other one. They have also announce the AmigaONE, the first new Amiga hardware in almost 10 years!

My System: I have had an Amiga 4000/040 at 25 MHz for over 5 years now, and still use it for graphics. It has 18MB RAM, a 4 GB HD, a 6x2 CD-RW drive, Genlock, Vidi24RT Video Digitizer, and a GVPDSS8+ Audio Digitizer. I also own an old Amiga 600 with 1 MB RAM.

Video Games I've written for the Amiga using AMOS Basic include Jordan vs Shaq 3: one-on-one and One-on-one IV (one-on-one basketball games), Shooter 2 and Shooter 3 (galaxian-style arcade game), Super Air Hockey 2, Blackjack, Poker, and a demo of Highlander: The Gathering (an adventure game with Mortal Kombat style fights based on Highlander the TV show).

Amiga Inc

Aminet

Software Hut

The Amiga Web Directory

Amiga Gateway

Yahoo!: Amiga

Links

Homepage

A Beginner's Guide to HTML

JavaScript Authoring Guide

My IDL Notes (Learn IDL in 7 steps)

Linux

Linux is now the primary operating system I use both at home and at school. It is free for download, and comes packaged on CD in many variations for under $30. Linux is a very stable, fast and powerful OS. It offers all the power of a Unix machine, with an easy to use GUI for more casual users. It usually comes with Netscape 4.7, Sun Microsystems excellent Star Office package (which will even read and write MS office formats), java, c++, and fortran compilers, and tons of extras. It is easy to install and get up and running ... probably the only trick is to make sure you have a real modem instead of a winmodem ( a crippled modem that will only run with Windows software emulating the missing hardware). With true multitasking and multiuser support, it outperforms Windows in every area except software availabliity, but Linux is gaining ground in that lately. It can be a little tricky to get an ATAPI CD-RW drive to work, but there is a huge support group for Linux online if you hae any questions. I highly recommend at least using Linux as a second OS as it has the ability to read and write to Windows partitions. Most versions of Linux can easily be placed in a separate partition without disturbing existing data on your computer.

My Systems:
My home computer (homer): Caldera OpenLinux eDesktop 2.4 on an AMD K6-2 500 MHz with 128 MB RAM, a 20GB and 30GB HD, a 24x4x4 CD-RW drive and 52x CD-ROM drive, ethernet card, SoundBlaster PCI audio card, and ATI Rage Pro Video card.
At school: Redhat Linux 7.1

BeOS

BeOS is my secondary OS. It is ideal for multimedia and internet appications and very easy to use. It is fast, powerful, reliable, and has the best GUI I have ever used. It also provides a powerful bash 2.0 shell with POSIX commands. It has read and write access to Windows partitions and read-only access to Linux partitions. There is lots of free software available from BeBits. BeOS handles CD-RW drives especially well. Its only disadvantages are more limited hardware support and a lack of java support. BeOS5 comes in two versions: personal and pro. Personal edition is a freely downloadable file that installs in Windows and is executed just like any other file, giving people a great chance to see what BeOS can do. Pro is available on CD and includes more features and installs on a separate partition. BeOS seems to have many similarities to the Amiga, and while its user base is very small, there are plenty of websites out there for BeOS.

My System: Same system as described under Linux, running BeOS5 Pro. Note that there is a bug in BeOS with the SoundBlaster 16 audio card. But the SoundBlaster Live card will work fine.

QNX

QNX is the third OS I run on my computer. It is the leading RTOS (Real Time Operating System) and is the OS of choice for many handheld devices. QNX has a bash shell in addition to a unique GUI and seems to be easy to use as well as powerful, reliable, andd fast. Its hardward support is better than BeOS, but not as good as Linux, and like BeOS, one of its major drawbacks is that it doesn't support java yet. I haven't used it as much as Linux and BeOS, but it seems to be a very good OS. QNX is free for download from their webpage in either a version that will execute from Windows or a version that can be installed on a separate partition.

My System: Same system as described under Linux, running QNX6 with the photon microGUI.

QNX Systems Inc

QNXStart.com

Yahoo!: QNX

You are visitor number

since July 26, 2001.

Programming Languages

Java: Official || Yahoo!
Java is a powerful object-oriented programming language developed by Sun Microsystems. It is my language of choice for developing applications (and of course applets) and has the distinct advantage of being cross-platform. Java programs compile into java bytecode, which can be run on any machine with java support, so you can write a program just once and have it run on any OS. Though some may argue, I've always found java more powerful and easier to use than C/C++.

IDL: Official || Yahoo!
IDL (Interactive Data Language) is by far the best programming language for scientific use. It is extremely powerful, and I write many non-scientific programs in it as well. Unfortunately, it is extremely expensive to get a liscence for IDL for Unix/Linux, so I just use it at school (a student version is available much cheaper for Windows). IDL is very easy to program in. It is interpreted rather than compiled ... the programs can be written in any text editor and commands can be typed in by themselves at the IDL prompt, making it very easy to debug programs. IDL has tremendous handling of arrays and plotting, and the built-in help is very comprehensive, making it extremely easy to do almost anything.

JavaScript: Yahoo!
JavaScript is a very useful language in designing web pages. It is a scripting language that is embedded in the HTML and makes dynamic web pages possible. Scrolling text, clocks, mouseovers, and simple video games can all be easily built into web pages with the use of javascript. It is similar to Java and C/C++ in syntax, most so to C since it is not object oriented. JavaScript can be very powerful and it can communicate with both the HTML and any java applets.

HTML: Yahoo!
While still not exactly a programming language, HTML 4.0 takes a big step towards becoming one. Through javascript, among other things, dynamic HTML can be created. HTML is mostly a set of tags for formatting a web page, and is thus very easy to learn and use. It is also very good to learn because HTML coding can be much more effective than using a commercial package to code for you.

AMOS: Yahoo!
AMOS is a very advanced version of Basic available for the Amiga computer. It was the primary programming langauge I used for several years, and is the best language out ther for making video games. It is very easy to do lots of cool stuff with graphics and add joystick and mouse control to programs.
AMAL: AMAL (AMOS Animation Language) is a "sublanguage" of AMOS. You can write an AMAL program within a string and assign it to any object. This program will execute independantly of the main AMOS program, making AMAL ideal for writing video games.

ARexx: Yahoo!
ARexx (Amiga version of Rexx) is an extremely powerful systemwide scripting language for the Amiga. As most applications on the Amiga have ARexx support, it is possible to write scripts that execute various operations on many applications. It is also effective for writing stand-alone programs. Rexx is available on non-Amiga systems.

C: Yahoo!
C is a very common and powerful programming language. It is a vast improvement upon Fortran and Pascal, and many applications are written in C. However, it is very inferior to IDL for scientific programming, and not up to java's capabilities for applications, so I rarely use it.

C++: Yahoo!
C++ is an improvement of C. It contains all the same commands as C, plus new ones. The big difference is that C++, like java, is an object-oriented programming language, wheras C is not.

Fortran: Yahoo!
Fortran is an old language that is still used somewhat in the scientific community. There is really no reason to still use it, as C/C++ and now IDL have replaced it as the language of choice for scientific applications.

BASIC: Yahoo!
BASIC is the easiest language to learn, and a great language to start programming with. It isn't as powerful as java or IDL, but can still be used to write many general purpose programs and get a feel for programming. I have been programming in BASIC since I got a Commodore 64 when I was 6.

Pascal: Yahoo!
Pascal is another language that is easy to learn, but it is of little use other than that. Java, IDL and C/C++ are all much better for writing programs in and BASIC is easier to learn. Pascal is mainly used in computer science classes taught in high school.