| Title : The 'Kickstart' Guide to the AMIGA
Author: Ariadne Software Ltd (UK)
Publ. : Ariadne Software Ltd (UK)
Price : �12.95 (varies)
Pages : 275
ISBN : 0-9512921-0-2
This book is a (reviewed and updated) compilation of a series of journals
originally distributed to european developers (with the support and blessing
of C=).
It starts by reviewing the hardware components and goes into detail about
the chips and their functions touching briefly on the 68000. It then goes
into (what I found) a complex description of EXEC and the libraries. There
are chapters on 'WACK' debugging (don't ask!) and graphics. There is a whole
section devoted to 'Getting Started in C' (39 pages) although I didn't find
it easy to follow - several of the example programs contain the 'obligatory'
printing/typing errors that serve to drive you mad after you've painstakingly
typed for hours (*why* can't they get those things right?). It also contains
a reference listing of all the library routines in 1.2.
IMHO
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I find it a very 'smugly' written book. It assumes a fairly good technical
understanding of the internals of micros (ie, chips, assemblers etc) and
contains a lot of 'in' references (Amiga buzz-words: WACK, ROMWACK, NEWACK,
'Nasty-mode' etc - which means that a green user has to read the book very
carefully in order to get the definitions right) there's also a fair amount
of name-dropping (most names meaning nothing to me).
In my opinion it is NOT a book that would be useful for a beginner, it's aimed
more at an experienced developer/teccie with a leaning towards the guts of
the machine. I'm hoping to make more use of this book when I get more deeply
involved with my Amiga - the only problem is that the book gets dated with
listings pertaining to Kickstart 33.166 and Workbench 33.43 (Oct '86).
Keith.
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