You are already using AMOS Professional like an expert, and have just used the three alternative methods of calling up one of the most useful AMOS Professional features, as follows:
Typing in the Edit Window
If you have been experimenting, and cannot clear the Edit Screen to its original empty
state, leave your machine switched on, with the AMOSPro_System disc in the internal floppy disc
drive, and press the [Ctrl]+[Amiga]+[Amiga] keys together. This will re-boot AMOS
Professional, allowing you to clear your electronic slate.
Look at the empty Edit Screen, and identify the small flashing block in the top left-hand corner of the large area below the row of control buttons. This is the "program cursor" and it marks the current position where anything you type in will appear on screen. This top left-hand position marks the "home" starting point of the Edit Window, which is where the list of instructions that make up your computer programs begin to appear.
Press the [A] key on your keyboard, and a lower-case "a" will appear in the Edit Window, shunting the program cursor one character to the right. Now hold down one of the [Shift] keys and press [A] again. There should now be a capital "A" next to the little "a" on screen. The [Shift] key is used to type in upper-case letters as well as any of the symbols that are marked above the numbers and punctuation marks on your keyboard keys. So to type in a "$" symbol, you would press [Shift]+[4] together. Type in a "$" now.
Now locate the extra-large key with a turn-left arrow on it, to the right-hand side of the main block of keys. This is the [Return] key, and it is used to start a new line when writing programs. Please press this key once, so that the program cursor is waiting at the beginning of a new line.
Just above the large [Return] key, there is a small key marked by a left-arrow. This is the [Delete] key, and it is used to rub out characters already typed in the Edit Window. Please press it as many times as necessary to get rid of any characters that you have typed, until the cursor is back "home" in the top-left corner of the Edit Window.
The mouse pointer can also be used to position the program cursor in program lists, as well as to mark out special blocks of the program, and this will become obvious in the next Chapter.
Your first programs
Type in the following program so that it appears in the Edit Window, and then press the
[Return] key:
E>Print 2+2