Binary and Hexadecimal.
Updated: 7 November 2024
To create games, utilities, drivers or applications you need to learn to program and computers has loads of programming languages to choice from, the question is which one to use? It really depends on a number of factors: skill of the programmer, the software to be developed, time to be spent on it, speed, stability, and type of software. For example, a device driver would not be written in Basic or Logo but more like C or even assembler for extra speed and stability required.
If you are a beginner, then you need to learn the basics of programming and there are many books, guides, tutorials and courses available. You need to learn commands, syntax, variables, arrays, memory, input and output, files, structured or object orientated programming as so on. A t lot of these concepts are shared between many languages, so learning them will allow you to almost develop in any language!
For a list of programming terminology, try these Terms and this Glossary .
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The web uses 1000s of standards and there is a lot to learn. Best place to start is to learn HTML first and work on from there. Java script is useful for client side scripting, but for advanced programmers you need to learn server side scripting for accessing databases and accessing other sites: ASP, ASP.NET, Java, Perl and PHP.
The following links are pages for languages that can be used on different platforms including Linux, PC (Windows), Apple Mac or mobile devices.
Products to aid programming, graphics and web development:
Books and Articles on Programming
To program the Commodore Amiga, you need to know some knowledge about AmigaOS and its internal workings. You need to know the concept of libraries, devices, resources, intuition, gadtools or reaction user interface, graphics, screens, sprites and the filing system. The Rom Kernel Reference Manuals and the Amiga Developer CD will supply a lot of information on how to access these features in AmigaOS. Some languages such as Amos and Blitz Basic will supply a lot of commands to access them and leave a lot of the complicated stuff out. On the Amiga, to write games, you need to know about the graphics library for Native graphics modes on OCS/ECS/AGA or using P96,CGFX,WarpUp and Warp3D for the graphics cards and 3D hardware.
The Atari ST was a direct competitor to the Commodore Amiga at the time, so here are some links to some programming pages.
To program the Linux there are a number of programming languages available which are also available for other platforms (see cross platform links above). The main language is GNU C/C++, there are well known languages for Apache such as Python, Perl and PHP and other less well known ones as well if you want to try them.
To program the PC running Windows and so on need to know a about the inner workings of the operating system. So you need to know about shared Dynamic Link Libraries, device drivers (DRV, VXD), BIOS (DOS), Windows API, DirectX API, OpenGL API and so on. The Microsoft Developers Network (MSDN) provides a lot of information on developing programs on Microsoft operating systems and some is usually provided with most Microsoft Programming Languages such as Visual Basic,C and C# and so on.
There are a number of languages to program the Mac on a similar level to the PC as well as the Web based languages (see above):
There are at least four main Smart Phones on the market today. They are the iPhone, Android, Blackberry and Windows Phone, they can be programmed
with their own languages and operating system with just a SDK:
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