Bare-Metal Amiga Programming: For OCS, ECS and AGA

Book Synopsis: Programming the "bare-metal" means writing software that directly interacts with a system's hardware without the use of an operating system. The main reason for doing this is to increase efficiency as well as providing functionality that may otherwise not directly be supported by the operating system. While the Amiga has a powerful multi-tasking operating system, most games and demos go the bare-metal way. They are programmed in assembly language and bypass AmigaOS in order to communicate directly with the custom chips and the other hardware to bring special effects and smooth animations. This book is about programming the Commodore Amiga hardware directly, bypassing AmigaOS. It covers all three chipset versions released by Commodore: OCS, ECS and AGA. Each of the sub systems has its own chapter that explains the workings and provides a number of examples. Amongst the subjects covered are the audio hardware, the Copper, the Blitter, sprites and playfields. This book also covers using the disk controller as well as interfacing with joysticks, paddles, mice and the keyboard. An understanding of Motorola 680x0 assembly programming is required to get the best out of this book. Some knowledge of the workings of AmigaOS and the Workbench is useful but not necessarily required.