currently being worked on in the Editor. Type the following line in Direct Mode now, and then press the [Return] key.
D>Print "This is Direct Mode"
Direct Mode offers a simple way of gaining access to a disc, to examine its contents, or load some images. It also allows you to check the results of instant tests of text, graphics and sound commands, before including them in your programs. Try out the following lines from Direct Mode now, and remember to press [Return] after typing in each line. The first line instructs AMOS Professional to report how many little dots known as "pixels" make up the height of the current screen. The middle line calls for a report of how much free chip memory is available. The third line triggers a print-out of the contents of the current disc, known as a "directory".
D>Print Screen Height D>Print Chip Free D>Dir
There is a full guided tour around all of the Direct Mode operations in the next Chapter.
To end this beginner's introduction, take a look at some ready-made programs that have been created by other programmers using AMOS Professional. If you have been experimenting, and are not quite sure of everything that is displayed on screen at the moment, leave your AMOSPro_System disc in place, and press [Ctrl] + [Amiga] + [Amiga] to make sure that you start from scratch again.
After being greeted by your name, and revealing the Edit Screen, remove your AMOSPro_System disc and insert the disc labelled AMOSPro_Productivityl.
Loading a program
As usual with AMOS Professional, you have a choice of how to select the loading operation.
You can call up the Main Menu titles with the right mouse button, and select the [Load]
option from the [Project] menu in the usual way. Alternatively, there is a keyboard short-cut by
pressing [Amiga] + [L]. Either operation will call up a special interactive panel called a
"File Selector". A file is simply a self-contained chunk of computer data, with its own name,
held on a magnetic disc.
With the File Selector in the middle of your screen, use the mouse pointer to highlight one of the programs on offer, and click on the [Return] icon. If you are interested in an arcade game, you can select and highlight the line that reads Zybex/Zybex.AMOS, or if you prefer a practical program then Fileo'fax.AMOS is worth examining.
Certain programs need more memory than others, and if there is not enough memory available when you want to load a particular program, you will be presented with a "dialogue box" on the screen, asking if you want to expand the size of the relevant memory. When dialogue boxes are presented by AMOS Professional, you normally select your response using the mouse pointer and clicking on the left mouse button.