STOS Game Creator

mancity12 · Post by **mancity12** » Sun Jun 05, 2011 3:07 pm

Hi guys

,

First id like to say that under no impression whatsoever that I think it will/ would be easy to create a game for the Atari ST. I know it would take months, if not years to get anything like a game made, but it's the playing around with it im most interested in for the time being.

With that in mind, I am interested in trying it. Playing around with a few things and putting something together over time.

My first question basically is, If I got a full copy of "STOS Game Creator" with all 3 disks and manuals, would it have absolutely everything I would need in to start and create something? I assume there is some software in the set for creating sprites, adding music and for programming and to piece it all together?

My second question is, what computer "language" would I need to start to learn if I wanted to do this? Im assuming the STOS Game Creator has some kind of programming interface, and an assumption that you know some kind of programming language?

Thanks alot in advance for any information you can provide.

CoolCoyote · Post by **CoolCoyote** » Sun Jun 05, 2011 7:39 pm

Hi
Stos has its own language, a kind of basic

I dont really remember all of its addon, but its quite cool

Fyi, prehistorik was done with Stos ( and with amos on Amiga)

You can even found book like "Stos for dummies"
I got one years ago

darklight · Post by **darklight** » Sun Jun 05, 2011 10:42 pm

This website has all you really need to get up & running with STOS:

http://stos.atari.st/

Good luck!

mancity12 · Post by **mancity12** » Mon Jun 06, 2011 5:47 am

Hey thanks alot, I didn't know there was a dedicated site!

I have just looked at the link for the manual, is this only something you can burn to a floppy to view on the PC?

mancity12 · Post by **mancity12** » Mon Jun 06, 2011 6:00 am

Doesn't matter, iv'e found a link to the manual on the Atari Archive site

mancity12 · Post by **mancity12** » Mon Jun 06, 2011 1:44 pm

Just ordered Alcock's Illustrated BAsic off Amazon, as recommended in the STOS manual, so will give that a read first

.

Thanks for the help.

AtariSince1989 · Post by **AtariSince1989** » Mon Jun 06, 2011 4:39 pm

Interesting topic.

A question for the experts; which are in your opinion the pros and cons of using STOS vs GFA BASIC?

mancity12 · Post by **mancity12** » Mon Jun 06, 2011 8:25 pm

Right

Im not new to programming and computers. Im new to Atari ST's and the BASIC language, but I have abit of knowledge on newer languages and computer systems.

So, im trying to try the very FIRST tutorial in the manual, to simply load a sprite (for god sake!), it says, under Section 2 "Guided Tour" and I quote -

Lets's have a look at the sprite commands in action. Before we can use these instructions, we will first need to load some example sprites from the accessory disc. Place the disc into your drive and type in the lines:

mode 0
load "animals1.mbk"

So, you put the disc into the drive, and where exactly do you type these lines? Am I being really thick? I took a guess and thought, maybe you need to load the language disc, and when it's loaded, swap it for the accessory disc and then try it. Nothing. So then I read the Read me on the Accessory disc about un-archiving the files (which is clearly not mentioned in the manual), so did that and put the files onto a blank floppy, but nothing!

Im sure once i get going I will be fine, but this is a nightmare!

Please, please point me in the right direction!

Post by **Dal** » Mon Jun 06, 2011 8:42 pm

Daft question (perhaps), but you are typing these commands into the STOS command interpreter right?

darklight · Post by **darklight** » Mon Jun 06, 2011 9:07 pm

You've got to put the STOS language disk into your computer, restart it, and the STOS editor will load. After a few minutes, you'll see a (probably) black screen with a list of F-key functions at the top, and possibly some information about loaded extensions, followed by an 'Ok' prompt.

This is the editor. You should type these lines into here, and swap the disks to the accessory disk before you run those lines.

Just so you know, the STOS editor is like an 'immediate' window in more modern IDEs. Anything you type, will get executed immediatley. To write & store a program, you put line numbers at the start of a line, i.e.

10 mode 0
20 load "animals1.mbk"

this will store the lines instead of running them immediatley, and you can run your program by entering 'run'. STOS is a bit out of date in this respect, its probably the biggest issue you'll face. I did try writing an editor for the PC, which looked a bit like visual basic, but havent touched it for years.

mancity12 · Post by **mancity12** » Mon Jun 06, 2011 9:24 pm

Thanks alot for the tips

I finally managed to do it, my mistake was thinking a full stop was a comma when un-archiving a file!

wongck · Post by **wongck** » Tue Jun 07, 2011 12:48 am

Heard that STOS from Mandarin supports up to STE only.
New TOS 2.06 is also not supported but there are some fixes for this.
Not sure where to find them but may be in some old FTP sites.

sgm · Post by **sgm** » Tue Jun 14, 2011 7:43 am

If the download version from the STOS site does not work for you then go to http://www.btinternet.com/~AnthonyJ/Ata ... index.html and download STOS Basic V2.07, it should run on the STE as I used it on my TOS 1.02 ST and my Falcon.

It has been a few years since I have done any STOS stuff so I may be wrong but I think you can change which verision of TOS it works with by which files are placed in a the relevant folder, however I may be thinking about the STOS fixer.

wongck · Post by **wongck** » Tue Jun 14, 2011 11:57 am

Yes, Anthony Jacques patches on the webpage states that it will work on Falcon and others.

exxos · Post by **exxos** » Mon Jul 23, 2012 9:25 am

AJ's stuff was pretty buggy unfortunatly. I had a report on the forum some time ago that the stos I uploaded to the site had some problems, I think this was sorted and uploaded to the forum somewhere. I think some couldn't work out how to use the new compiler.

The new compiler patches for all versions of stos, so it can run on any machine. Once its compiled as a PRG, thats it, it will run on any atari machine. If you have a TOS version not listed (very doubful) it will use the closest version.

AH's (not AJ) extension also replace the STOS graphics commands, such as the "draw" command ( I think ) become Falc_draw, this just means it will work on any TOS version without problems.

I think the problem is, people are used to patching STOS programs to work, true if you only have the PRG you will hace to patch it to work. Though if you have the source, the compiler patches 14 TOS tables into the PRG for you. I know the compiler does this pretty quick so some people may miss it doing it, but it works very well. I was helping with the beta testing of AH's extensions years ago, they are awesome and easy to use. I will recheck the STOS setup I uploaded at some point and also write a guide on it. Though its low priority work, stos isn't in mainstreem demand these days, but it would be good to have a good generic stos setup that we all can use without problems.

exxos · Post by **exxos** » Mon Jul 23, 2012 11:11 am

I am having a quick look at the compiler, I think some people may have run into a problem as the compiler only seems to patch from files loaded from disc, rather than ones from memory. I am not sure why that is, but I will have a fiddle with the compiler code and see if I can work out why. I assume it was a bug.

I could do with some people who have a falcon and know a bit about stos to actually try some stuff out. The later version of STOS is geared up for the falcon, my falcon is in bits so nothing i can test easily. Unless anyone knows if STEEM did a falcon version ?

DarkLord · Post by **DarkLord** » Mon Jul 23, 2012 4:19 pm

Kind of off topic, but does STOS have the ability to run in mono or create games
in mono?

Thanks!

exxos · Post by **exxos** » Mon Jul 23, 2012 4:33 pm

DarkLord wrote:Kind of off topic, but does STOS have the ability to run in mono or create games
in mono?

Thanks!

erm. yep, well seems to run in steem in mono, so i guess yes!

dml · Post by **dml** » Mon Jul 23, 2012 5:10 pm

From what I remember of STOS, it does make access to lots of things quite easy, so you can get moving on a project quite quickly, get stuff on the screen, access I/O, even call assembly language programs from it. There's a learning curve (and you'll spend time in the manual) but it's not very steep.

The real downside is scalability. I don't remember there being any sensible way to manage or break up a large project - factor out bits and get benefits from libraries, code reuse and named services. It's classic BASIC with numbered lines etc. Your project becomes an unwieldy mess as it grows.

I don't remember much about GFA Basic but if it addresses the scalability problem then that would be a big plus point. If you're not planning a big project and want access to performance without getting into C/asm then STOS is probably a contender.

DarkLord · Post by **DarkLord** » Mon Jul 23, 2012 5:53 pm

exxos wrote:
erm. yep, well seems to run in steem in mono, so i guess yes!

Cool, thanks!

lp · Post by lp » Mon Jul 23, 2012 9:38 pm

dml wrote:I don't remember much about GFA Basic but if it addresses the scalability problem then that would be a big plus point. If you're not planning a big project and want access to performance without getting into C/asm then STOS is probably a contender.

GFA is also classic basic in the sense that your project becomes one huge listing at all times. However, the editor is more refined. It does support subroutine folding which is extremely popular now days. It makes the huge listing appear more manageable. Also it does not use line numbers, so its less messy to some degree. However, to write a game with GFA, you might need something like M.A.G.E. - Majic Arcade Graphics Engine (MajicSoft) or code all the sprite stuff yourself.

Either way, coding is fun, fun!

BoNuS · Post by **BoNuS** » Tue Jul 24, 2012 9:32 am

lp wrote:
dml wrote:I don't remember much about GFA Basic but if it addresses the scalability problem then that would be a big plus point. If you're not planning a big project and want access to performance without getting into C/asm then STOS is probably a contender.
GFA is also classic basic in the sense that your project becomes one huge listing at all times. However, the editor is more refined. It does support subroutine folding which is extremely popular now days. It makes the huge listing appear more manageable. Also it does not use line numbers, so its less messy to some degree. However, to write a game with GFA, you might need something like M.A.G.E. - Majic Arcade Graphics Engine (MajicSoft) or code all the sprite stuff yourself.

Either way, coding is fun, fun!

So where can I find this Majic Arcade Graphics Engine ? I've done al lot of GFA programming but never used it but I'm always intressted in
new sources and so on... Little more speed never hurts

mstram · Post by **mstram** » Sun Dec 29, 2013 5:20 pm

*** edit **

Solved ... seems it only works with 1.0 TOS

Greetings all,

I have the STOS 2.6 version running on my ST box.

With Steem 3.2 I on my xp/sp3 box , it starts up and I get the "IDE" (such that it is) but am getting bus erors for any command, entered.

Steem also throws an addr error when STOS launches.

Is there particular Steem settings I can change ?

Is Steem 3.2 the latest / best / ... only ? version

** edit* downloaded / tried Steem 3.54 ... same problem **

lp · Post by lp » Sun Dec 29, 2013 7:45 pm

BoNuS wrote:So where can I find this Majic Arcade Graphics Engine ? I've done al lot of GFA programming but never used it but I'm always intressted in new sources and so on... Little more speed never hurts

I have an original copy somewhere, but not found it yet. Still working at closet cleaning.

It might not be usable without the manual, won't know til I find it.

nativ · Post by **nativ** » Mon Dec 30, 2013 1:50 am

It that different from the Ninth Wave ( Terry King ? ) Sprite Works package? I have iirc both versions? 1 & 2 and a printed manual ( is that online? ) I even have a working scanner at the moment!

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