STOS was written by Francois Lionet and Constantin Sotiropoulos. It was a line number based BASIC programming language, but extensions could be written for it in assembly language for the interpreter and compiler. This overcame limitations in the language such as the fact that sprites were so slow.
Francois later developed AMOS for the Amiga, which was syntactically better but STOS was really the best high level games programming language option for the Atari ST.
Why was it so good? We learned how to program on these machines and Wheee The Fibble landed
a plum job at ST Format.
If anyone remembers or cares about these programs I can email disk images if required.
Misty - Demo programming functions
Misty was written by Top Notch (Wheee The Fibble and A Clockwork Orange) with additional help
from Neil W. Stewart and Michael Lynn.
I made some useful suggestions such as a better specification for skopy over the old bitcopy and functions such as hertz, reboot and mostly_harmless. It was one of those things that required loads of testing. Our STs didn't have hard disks so compilation times were slow.
And just incase I forget:
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Setup:
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Compile the test program, reboot, test the executable and then repeat until the program works perfectly!
Music player(s) - Wheee The Fibble (Multiple formats) and Michael Lynn (David Whittaker),
Whizzcat STFM and STe player combination - Michael Lynn,
OverSTOS (Overscan extension) - Neil W. Stewart,
Raster - Neil W. Stewart.
These folk wrote the extensions and some example demos. Other STOS programmers that later used the extensions were The Pixel Twins, Cyberpunk, Supreme, Storm, Zogg, The Skunk and Hedgehogs.
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The finest STOS Demo ever to exist.
For the first time ever play a maze game for a main menu or select from a full screen distorting menu. Includes A Globe Called Alice and On The Mule Train To Yokohama. |
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Razrez: an accessory to play chip-tunes.
A malenky disk full of warbles. |
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After a long, long time. It was finally released.
A 2 disk Mega Demo featuring crazy animations, a car driving main menu and zest. |
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Released at the first Scottish Computer Show in 1992. Waldo got an Acorn Archimedes. 3 hidden screens were added 5 days after the show. |
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This demo is so advanced that the intro doesn't work on SainT!
10 screen mega demo. Copy 82 tracks, 11 sectors, 2 sides.
This is the fullscreen scroller by WTF, with a picture of Spiderman behind it. Who said big scrollers couldn't be done in STOS? |
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5 screen preview demo.
The Metropolis screen was further enhanced using Misty to include a 16 pixel high scroller and digi-drums. |
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A 2 disk nice sample and graphics demo.
Probably due for a revival using new technology. |
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Rasters, chequerboard, layered mountains, vertical scrolling options, horizontal text scroller. |
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Rasters, Moire pattern dots, 2 vertical scrollers, 8 layer parallax and digi-drums. |
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Unreleased due to memory and audio playback limitations. Part of the Mr Cargill demo. Rewritten for the PC in DOS mode. Should redo the 19 crazy pictures in full colour in DirectX. |
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Intro with rasters, exploding toilet, picture of a hippo and groovy tune while loading, song by Victor Lewis Smith, graphics with Frank Hovis from Absolutely and a full screen credit scroller at the end! This demo is STe only so it doesn't work as yet on SainT. |
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Not so much a STOS demo but a demo compilation.
My demo screens were: Others were: Lost Boys Cebit '90, Demo Club Advert, Replicants Intro, The Young Ones Sample Demo, Mega Scroller. |
Unreleased demos were Danny Boon, TechTron style, Word Bender, Conrad Poohs and his dancing teeth, Sweet Face and the Legalise It conversion from the Amiga. Some of these demos were too ambitious for STOS. No time to rewrite them on the PC unfortunately.
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Still a brilliant adventure game from The PSC.
Did this one involve geese? I think it did! |
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