Amos Professional Manual  Contents  Index

Memory Banks


Here is a list of the most common types of memory bank that will be used with AMOS Professional programs:

Bank Name         Items Stored                    Bank Type        Memory          Notes
Sprites           Sprite or Bob images            Permanent         Chip           Bank 1 only
Icons             Icon images                     Permanent         Chip           Bank 2 only
Music             Melodies                        Permanent         Chip           Bank 3 only
AMAL              AMAL progs. and PL table        Permanent         Fast           Bank 4 only
Samples           audio samples                   Permanent         Chip           Bank 5 default
Menu              menu definitions                Permanent         Fast           any bank
Pic.Pac           compressed pictures             Permanent         Fast           any bank
Resource          buttons and dialogues           Permanent         Fast           any bank
Tracker           Noisetracker music              Permanent         Chip           any bank
Chip Work         temporary chip workspace        Temporary         Chip           any bank
Fast Work         temporary fast workspace        Temporary         Fast           any bank
Chip Data         long-term chip data             Permanent         Chip           any bank
Fast Data         constant fast data              Permanent         Fast           any bank

Reserving a bank
It has already been explained that AMOS Professional allocates certain types of bank automatically. To create any other required memory bank, they must first be "reserved". The RESERVE AS command is followed by the type of bank that you want to create, a comma, then the number of bytes needed for the length of this bank.

If a selected bank already exists, it will be erased to make room for the new definition.

Allowable bank numbers range from 1 to 65535, but because bank numbers 1 to 4 are already used internally by the AMOS Professional system, new banks should be reserved using the bank numbers 5 and above. For users who have upgraded from earlier versions of the AMOS system, you will have noted the increase in the range of available bank numbers from the original 15. There are four alternative types of bank that can be reserved, and these will now be explained.

RESERVE AS DATA
instruction: reserve a new data bank
Reserve As Data bank number,length

This reserves the selected bank number with the number of bytes specified as its length. Data banks are permanent, and wherever possible, their memory will be allocated from fast memory, so this type of bank should not be used for information such as Objects and samples which need to be accessed directly by the Amiga's hardware chips.

RESERVE AS WORK
instruction: reserve a new work bank
Reserve as Work bank number,length

This allocates a temporary workspace of the requested length from fast memory, if it is available.

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05.09.02