....ooOoo....
STOS is the forerunner to the Amiga version, AMOS, AMOS Pro etc.. and more recently Klick and Play on the PC,
Mark Montreuil came up with this defenition ......
STOS (for ST Operating System) is a programming language based on BASIC ( Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code ),that makes creating sound,graphics and movement on the Atari 16/32 bit line of computers as painless as possible. STOS has commands that handle input /output, animation, music logic and program execution in an easy to understand way.A STOS programmer can spend more time on actual game design than on the fiddly bits.
Many things that were not considered possible,such as changing screen resolutions in the middle of a program or writing Arcade-type games in a BASIC language, are a reality with STOS. Hundreds of quality games, demos,utilities and educational packages have already been written in STOS.
STOS is a full-featured software development tool. Using STOS, art screens created in specialised paint packages,like Degas,Neo or Crack Art, can be easily used to create basic game graphics.STOS has built- in Sprite, Music,Map, Font and Sound effects generators.You can write some code,and,at a keypress,call up any of the added utilities(called accessories) to work on added features. You can even write your own accessories, to use at any time. Machine-code routines can be called from within STOS, and new commands (called extensions),can be written to enhance STOS's functionality.Some extensions that are currently available include 3D, the Missing Link and Misty (see Extensions list for further information).
All in all, STOS is the perfect tool to bring your game ideas to reality without having to trudge through realms of machine code!
Thanks for that Mark,but it must be added that with the advent of such extensions as Extra by Martin Cubitt plus some of the more obscure commands that can be found in other extensions STOS can no longer be tagged as just a Game Creator, serious programs are now beginning to appear, APPLications are now a reality with a little bit of assembler added, there is now very little or nothing that STOS cannot achieve,
No one here would be able to find the time
or Interest in anything regarding STOS BASIC
The actual Copyright owners are the three Authors of STOS BASIC, Constantin Sotiropoulos,
Francois Lionet and I beleive Jawx, Without there permission STOS can not be freely copied, Look for advertisements in Internet newsgroups, ask for it yourself or try to get the coverdisk version.
Billy Allen of Top Notch software, Author of the Misty and Missing Link extensions can be quoted as saying,
The next time you see a badly written STOS game,don't say STOS is awful, say this programmer is awful.
STOS uses line numbers,in my opinion there is nothing wrong with this, but it is the old way of programming people tend to frown on this system,but at the end of the day its the easiest to get to grips with and it does the job, and thats what counts,
ACB, Accessories that are loaded along with STOS and stay in memory ready for your use,these are normally programming aids as opposed to something that is used in your program, for example there is a picture compactor, an art package and many many more.
M/C , These are machine code programs,simply load into a bank and using the various AREG DREG etc you pass variables to the programs and run them using CALL,usually quite small and usually used for speed, but also for convenience, for example there is an M/C program for displaying spectrum pictures with 512 colours on an STFM, A m/c list can be found in this document,
IDS have also revealed that HERO was completely written and compiled in STOS,The announcement has blown rather a large hole in the myth that STOS is too basic and slow to be used in any serious form to write games.
There are many other examples of STOS in the commercial world, not least the FUN SCHOOL series that was not only written in STOS but not even compiled, these packages ( of which there were many ) are still regarded as the top educational software for the ST,
A Shareware educational program called MAGIC STORY BOOK was featured on the Rolf Harris childrens tv show, some years ago admittedly, but the program was deemed to be so good that ST Format have recently re- released it on their March 1995 coverdisk, you may be interested to note that a total of six STOS written programs where given away that month via magazine cover disk,
Every public domain catalouge you pick up will contain a very high amount of STOS coded programs, from public domain to licenceware,
There have been STOS diskmagazines in the past,Most can be downloaded from the STOS FILE Site.
There is a STOS mailing list if you are on line, a simple e-mail will add your address to the list, the advantages are the ability to swap and compare notes with STOS users from all over the world within an instance, at present the mailing list is probably the fastest way to solve your STOS problems and answer any STOS queries, see address section in this FAQ,
There have also been shoot'em up construction kits and all manners of add on packages that need STOS basic and are designed to help you easily make programs, however you are advised to make the programs yourself,
You can actually change the STOS commands by editing files within the STOS folder,a full tutorial and editor routine appeared in the one off STOS GIGAZINE by Black Eagle,
Yes STOS can run on a PC under emulation, Various have been tried with different results, By far the best results can be achieved using PaCifiST from http://www.pacifist.fatal-design.com/,This emulator is freeware, small and easy to set up, STOS BASIC, runs directly from your PC Hard Drive, However the Compiler shows best results from a PaCifiST disk image, This is easy to set up once you have installed the emulator.
Gemulator now runs STOS with just as pleasing results and will run in a window or full screen under directX, Gemulator is commercial and can be found at http://www.emulators.com , However if you don't mind not having sound then you can get a demo version from the same site that runs STOS just as well.
To run STOS BASIC in all its glory with the latest extensions then you will need the latest STOS, By this I mean the actual PRG that runs your STOS, these can be found from the home page of the programmer responsible for keeping STOS up to date, Anthony Jacques is the man and his files are at http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/jacquesa/
STOS and GEM
The simple answer is NO you can not use STOS and GEM together, some brave attempts have been made to mix the two, perhaps the best but allways doomed to failure attempt was by Paul Jones , His efforts can be found through the STOS file site.
Indeed he did manage to access GEM from his Falcon and there are screen shots to prove it, However there is no fully working extension that will allow a STOS BASIC programmer to access GEM and produce a compiled and fully working program that calls and uses GEM.
Heres a few interesting facts about the men behind STOS BASIC,
Numerous STOS Extensions
Anthony Jacques
jacquesa@zetnet.co.uk
Also Falcon Extension, STOS shell and many other STOS Extensions and STOS projects, visit: www.users.zetnet.co.uk/jacquesa/
STOS Mailing list houghp6@cs.man.ac.uk Phil Hough
STOS FILE Site.
Everything a STOS Programmer would need, on Line,
There is a very healthy STOS mailing list that boasts a large membership including many extension writers and well known STOS authors from around the world, There are people on the list who used to use STOS and know enough to offer advice and help as well as tips and tricks.
The STOS Mailing list is currently the quickest way to solve any of your STOS related problems or queries, Simply post a message and within hours other STOS user from around the world will be answering, commenting and joining in whatever subject you have brought to the forum, NEW STOS users are especialy welcome as most people on the list take great pleasure in passing on whatever they have learnt over the years.
As the STOS list also consists of a lot of Extension developers and even people who are actively upgrading STOS itself, then this is the place to find out everything first, even when something has been released you will find out here at least a month before the off line community has a chance of knowing,
To Join the STOS Mailing list you simply email the current list keeper who at this time is Phil Hough and his email is houghp6@cs.man.ac.uk Just ask him in any for you like...but be polite, to add you to the STOS mailing list,
By joining the STOS mailing list you will not be overwhelmed with hundreds of emails a day, even at its busiest it probably only generates a dozen a day... mostly it can be that amount a week,But the advantages of being on the list are all set out above, any STOS user with Internet access should email houghp6@cs.man.ac.uk and get on this list immediatly
FAQ Contributors
| Graphic | LOAD | SAVE | HOW |
|---|---|---|---|
| PI1 | LOAD | SAVE | STOS BASIC |
| PI2 | LOAD | SAVE | STOS BASIC |
| PI3 | LOAD | SAVE | STOS BASIC |
| NEO | LOAD | SAVE | STOS BASIC |
| MBK | LOAD | SAVE | STOS BASIC |
| PAC | LOAD | SAVE | STOS BASIC |
| PC1 | LOAD | NO | MISSSING LINK Ext |
| PC2 | LOAD | NO | GBP Ext |
| PC3 | LOAD | NO | GBP Ext |
| IMG | LOAD | NO | EXTRACT Ext |
| TNY | LOAD | NO | EXTRA Ext |
| TN1 | LOAD | NO | EXTRA Ext |
| TN2 | LOAD | NO | EXTRA Ext |
| TN3 | LOAD | NO | EXTRA Ext |
| IFF (16 Colour Uncomprs') | LOAD | NO | EXTRA Ext |
| IFF (16 Colour Uncomprs') | NO | SAVE | STOS BASIC |
| GIF (16 Colour 87a) | LOAD | NO | GIF.PRG |
| CA1 (Crack Art LowRez) | LOAD | SAVE | CONTROL Ext |
| BIG (Uses all 4 borders) | LOAD | SAVE | OVERSCAN.PRG |
| PCS (Photochrome) | LOAD | NO | PCS.PRG |
| SPU (Spectrum Uncompres') | LOAD | NO | SPECSHOW.PRG |
| TGA (Targa True Colour) | LOAD | ? | STOS FALCON Ext |
| BMP (Windows BitMap 256) | LOAD | ? | FALCON Ext |
| SEQ (Cyber Animations) | LOAD | NO | CYBER Ext |
| VID (T.V. Video Files) | LOAD | NO | VIDI Ext |
| FLI (256 Clr Anims) | LOAD | NO | STOS FALCON Ext |
| FLC (256 Clr Anims) | LOAD | NO | STOS FALCON Ext |
You can manualy load and display Video files such as: VID,FLM,IFF,IVF
There exists STOS BASIC routines that will show you how to load,
View and manipulate such files, A disk of routines by Matthew Hunter
(Available from FloppyShop pdl in the STOS Section) has all the code
you would need to for the above files,
Extensions
| Extension | Description |
|---|---|
|
STOS 3D Commercial Mandarin/Europress 12.99 ( November 1995 ) |
As the title suggests it is a tool for 3D
programming from within STOS Basic,Although
released some time ago,you will find little
or no examples of this extensions capabilites,
the simple truth being that no one uses it,
it is not very good, |
|
BLITTER PD Authors unknown, but available from pdls | Utilising the STE Blitter chip,there are larger STE extensions that include Blitter commands along with other STE specific stuff. |
|
CODETEXT PD Unknown Author/s | ASCII lister,unsure as to what use this extension would be,but I have included it here because it exists |
|
COMPACT Part of STOS Basic package Mandarin | Picture compactor,comes with an ACB but also has commands for very fast packing and unpacking of screens that can be used from within your programs |
|
COMPILER Part of STOS Basic package Mandarin |
Compiler,without this you can't compile your basic
programs,a must for every STOS user,needs Compact ACB, |
|
CONTROL SHAREWARE L.J.Greenhalgh, any pdl 5.00 UKP | Many varied commands including new map/sprite, although these dont seem to beas fast as the Missing Link equivalent there are however many good points to this extension,switch construction routines,extensive port handling commands,border removal and many many more, including a very handy file existing command, recommended |
|
CYBER PD Andy Cato, any pdl | For viewing Cyber.seq files,a once thought of impossible task you can now play Cyber.seq files and even accompanying music |
|
EXTRA PD Martin Cubitt | Many varied commands,mainly serious types,this extensions comes as highly recommended,some graphical commands,cookie jar stuff,disk formatting,lots of disk info commands and a neat pixel perfect screen copy command, something for everyone in here |
|
EXTRACT PD GUNTER FELDMANN | Will extract and show PC? and IMG files,of course you will need to be in high resolution to view the IMG files,this does work in the interpreter but I never tested the compiled version, from Germany but with reasonably well translated docs |
|
FRS PD Ben Riley, STOSSER Diskzine | Varied, Interpreter only, no one made the compiler extension and are not likely to,couple of nice commands,but pretty useless if you cannot compile, it exists so its on the list |
|
GBP SHAREWARE GBP Software, all pdls 5.00UKP | Varied, with many some ste commands,most commands found here have already been used in Extra and Control,but there is without doubt some interesting stuff in here, definatly worth a look |
|
ICBIS Unknown Richard Hunt, Unknown price | Seems to be a complete sprite engine replacement and the documentation is impressive |
|
JAGPAD Anthony Jacques PD |
As the title suggests, this extension allows you to access the JAGPAD and let you code it into your games, STe needed to use a Jagpad in the side ports |
|
JOYSTICK Found on commercial game disk Cartoon Capers | Utilise both ports,one of the original extensions, this one came on a commercially released STOS game called Cartoon Capers, pretty useless if you have any of the above extensions that include joystick commands |
|
MAESTRO Commercial Mandarin 12.99 UKP (November 1995) |
SAMpled sound player,as suggested this is the
extension for playing sampled sounds, simply has
every command you need, simple as that, |
|
MODEM Postcardware Anthony Jacques |
Some Modem commands for easy access to dialing, connecting and of course hanging up |
|
MIDI |
For MIDI input, you need the MIDI equipment to
get anything out of this extension, |
|
MISTY SHAREWARE Top Notch Software, Goodmans int 5.00 UKP |
Demo orientated but something for everyone,this is
the first of two biggies from Top Notch software,
this extension went a long way to bringing STOS
some credibility in the programming world the Misty
Demo has still not been beaten in STOS,but its not
all for demo coders and there are some excellent
commands for everyone in there,very highly recommended, |
|
MISSING LINK SHAREWARE Top Notch Software, Goodmans int 15.00 UKP |
Games orientated but something for everyone, This
is THE big one, this extension has brought STOS bang up to date, no
matter what you are doing with STOS you must have this extension,
its got everything, but for making games it is unsurpassable, get it
NOW! |
|
NO BORDER 2.1 PD Orbital Software ( allegedly ) |
Removes top and bottom borders,does as it says but
can be a bit tempremental, has since been done in the Control
extension, |
|
PAUSE PD Anthony Jacques |
Allows you to use more than one disk to load STOS, Very usefull for floppy disk set ups if you have lots of extensions and ACBs, |
|
QUICK SHAREWARE ( Possibly NOT Supported ) Dattrax Software, STOSSER Diskzine 5.00 UKP |
Various commands, quite a few very nice commands
in this one,also one of the nicest installation programs,has a nasty
bug though, once you have used it,it is then impossible to access the
disk, for loading or whatever,( thats on a tos 1.2 ?? ) until a cold
boot has been performed, no permanent damage is caused and the
extension can be used so long as you dont want the disk, |
|
RASTER |
For Rasters,not much more one can say, pretty self explanitory, |
|
SQUASH Hmmm came with STOS I think ? |
Packing banks,screens and others,another original,
but its not 100% safe for the banks, its also a little slow, for
packing screens you should keep to the compact acb that uses the
Compact ext, |
|
STARS PD Lee Upcraft, any pdl /.....A Bargain! |
Starfield creator,this is an excellent extension,
its only feature is the making of starfields,if you want a starfield
in STOS then use this and nothing else, |
|
STE PD P.Yates for Mandarin |
For ste sound SAMpling commands, |
|
STEEXT SHAREWARE ( Unsupported ) Asa Burrows, any pdl 10.00 UKP but dont bother, |
Some more STE specific,By Asa Burrows probably one
of the most well known STE extensions, deals with extended colours,
light gun, DAC, hardware scrolling, the registration isn't supported
so the manual is not available, but later issues of STOSSER diskzine
20+ have extensive tutorials by one of the original beta testers,for
programming STOS on the STE then this and the said tutorials are a
must, STESTOSTERONE the STE specific STOS diskzine is heighly
reccomended for this and any other ste extension, |
|
Ninja Tracker PD L.J.Greenhalgh, any pdl |
Play mods on the STE AT UP TO 21khz and still have
some proc'time, an excellent extension, plays any four channel
protracker mod, and chip music |
|
TRACKER any pdl |
Play ABK files (Mods converted),comes with a whole
array of files and three extensions,one for each speed of 7,10,14khz,
there is a routine to convert MODS into ABK's ready for use with
the extensions, some quality is lost in the process, 10khz is the
recommended speed and still leaves enough processor time for a 32x32
scroller or a couple of sprites, |
|
TOME21 COMMERCIAL Shadow software But who cares, |
Map making extension, a bigger flop than STOS 3D,
even the demo to show the extension at its best was a joke, keep away
( commercial ), not a patch on the Missing Link map commands, |
|
USEFUL PD / |
Bits of stuff, but hard to see how they named
it useful, |
|
VIDI PD Rombo Productions / |
For use with VIDI-ST package,so haven't been able
to try it out, only a couple of commands in it, |
|
FALCON Anthony Jacques, any pdl |
USAGE The first extension aimed specifically at STOS on
the Falcon, with some impressive commands that will enable you to
sample via the DSP along with other impresive sound commands, pixel
perfect sprite detection, and even a true colour sprite engine, |
Machine Code programs
SOUND In STOS
SAMPLED SOUND
Principially, there exist only 3 formats of Samples, Signed, Unsigned and IFF. No matter what they are called ( AVR, WAV, SPL, SAM ) they usually fit into one of these categories ...
The Unsigned and the IFF-format is just a binary file consisting of all the values of the sample. Unsigned is an originate copy, IFF is more or less an inverse copy of it. If you own the ProTracker or something similar, it's easy to find out what format the samples are ...
The Signed format has a file-header and also -probably- some data stored within the sample, for example finishing marks etc ...
It would be a little too far out to describe all possible signed-formats,
for example AVR has also a file header where an extended name of the sample
can be stored etc, so i will just describe how to play what sample in STOS.
<>p>
STOS Maestro
------------
The original sample-replay-routines for STOS from Francis Lionet himself
plays samples from 5 to 22 KHz called SAM, the sample utility itself
can even work with up to 32 KHz, of course only mono since only the ST
soundchip is used.
STOS Maestro has originally been sold with the sampler-hardware but could also
be obtained without. The basic extension offers simple commands to replay
samples as RAW-data, that means unsigned binary, but also extended commands,
that could replay samples back and forth ( and the other way round ),
repeating all over, slower, faster etc.
Another possibility is to create a memory bank (mbk) in a special signed
format, that enabled STOS to play a specific sample out of this bank
without knowing what specific memory-address it is stored at, for example
samplay 7 played the 7th sample in the bank, where samples could differ
in speed and length.
Playing Samples with 5 KHz sounded lousy, but needed very little CPU-time.
22KHz sounded pretty good, took up huge amounts of memory and slowed down
the system enourmosly.
A typical sign of the STOS Maestro being used is that the sample slowed
down when the mouse is moved ...
STE-Extension(s)
----------------
The original STE extension and some others, STE-related extensions, offered
DMA replay, costing absolutely no CPU time.
The samples have to be in RAW, that means unsigned, format because all the
DMA sound does is simply take the values and play them without the possibilty
to work with marks or other format-commands.
Replay can be done from 6 over 12 and 25 up to 50 KHz in Mono as well as
Stereo. The sample can be played once or continuosly.
Since the DMA-sound doesn't need any CPU-time the system is not blocked in
any way, which means, keyboard, mouse, joystick and also Floppy- and Harddisk
stay completely available.
Falcon-Extension
----------------
Similarly to the STE, the Falcon also offers DMA-stereo-sound. The Falcon
can play 16bit Stereo-samples in RAW format up to 50KHz in various speeds
( except for 6 KHz, so any 6KHz DMA sound on the STE won't work directly
on the Falcon, because the Falcon "emulates" the STE DMA sound ), but of
course also in mono.
The systems stays completely intact.
The Missing Link
----------------
Since STOS Maestro doesn't offer a very good replay routine, too much CPU
time is used and the mouse slows down the samples, the Missing Link offers
an own replay-command, called the digiplay command.
Digiplay replays RAW (signed) samples from memory once or continuosly
in various speeds, needing less CPU-time than the Maestro command does.
The missing link also offers explicit commands how to play the samples
without explicit knowledge of their speed or their address.
Digiplay therefore could be seen as a replacement for maestro's replay-
commands but not for the Maestro record-commands.
It is very much faster indeed and the mouse interrupt stays intact, at
least when playing lower frequency samples like for example 12 KHz, which
provides an alright quality.
Digiplay only needs the Yamaha Soundchip of the ST.
Other Extensions
----------------
There are some other extensions that may offer STE-DMA-Replay commands,
but mostly they work like the ones described under STE-Extensions, since
those commands normally only set a few registers and initiate replay and
therefore are rather easy to code. Besides the Missing Link i do not know
any extensions offering Sample-replay on an ordinary ST, but you may of
course correct me if i'm wrong ... ;-)
CHIP
These files have several advantages, they are small, and can be packed to even smaller with an average size of 5k, yet the tunes are varied with many different sounds and last quite a long time before looping,Some have more than one tune in the same file, some have sound effects you can use for games, CHIP plays in the background and will not slow your program down, they can be used WITH sampled sound if you use the STe extensions,
Chip music was all the rage in the day of the demo..Unfortunatly now a lot of people frown and immediatly turn to the volume OFF when chip music is detected, personally I think it is because they have heard so much over the years, and certainly not because of lack of quality,
The best way to play CHIP is to use TML..That is the Missing Link Extension, this has MUSAUTO and MUSPLAY commands and is all you really need,
However some dont have TML or dont want it, you can play CHIP in basic,
Supported chip music formats are
reserve as work 15,5000
Its always a good idea to clean a bank using FILL before loading anything into it, but not strictly neccasary
Now to get it ready for playing,
dreg (0)=1 :rem Number of the Tune
It is now ready to start playing with the following command
loke $4d2,start(15)+8 :rem 8 is for MAD MAX Tunes
To stop the music at any time, use loke $4d2,0
The offsets are 8=Mad Max,Undead,ZOUND D,Old Lap
The Following Information has been written by Yiannis Paschalidis, The second part written by The Phantom
Tracker modules
Tracker modules (or mods) are files that contain a song and sound samples
of various instruments that are used to play the song. The samples usually
take up more space than the song pattern. The files can get quite large if
there are lots of samples contained in the file. I've seen sizes ranging from
2Kb up to 900Kb!
The music is usually 4 channel, and is played by mixing the sound samples
together in real time which can take up a lot of CPU time. Different pitches
are achieved by slightly altering the speed at which the sampled sound is
played back.
There are a lot of different mod creators out there (noisetracker,
protracker, screamtracker,etc...), but you are usually safe when assuming a
file ending in ".mod" can be played from STOS using a modplayer extension.
The sound quality you get and the CPU time required depends on the method you
use to play back the mod, however they will sound better than chip music.
bload music.mus,15
call start(15):rem the bank holding the music
6=Count Zero, Look through back issues of STOSSER Diskzine for more offsets and information
MODS
On the ST, you don't have much of a choice unfortunately. There is only the STOS Tracker extension. There are three STOS and Compiler extensions. Each extension has a different playback frequency.
Some speed tests showed that approximately half the CPU time is used for the 7KHz extension, and almost all CPU time is used with the 14Khz extension. This means that you can't really use the tracker extension to provide background music in action games. Part of the reason for the lack of speed is that not only does the tracker have to mix the samples for the music, it then has to use the yamaha soundchip to play the resultant sample.
Unfortunately, using this extension, you need to convert modfiles before you can play them and extension also kills the ACIA interrupt. This means that you can't read the keyboard mouse or joystick(s).STOS's sprite interrupts are left intact. The tracker extension does, however, provide a function to read the keyboard. If your computer has DMA sound (STe / Falcon, etc..) then you can play sound samples using DMA while tracker music is playing.
The STOS-Tracker package includes the three STOS & Compiler extensions, a utility to convert NOISE TRACKER (Amiga or ST) modules to STOS-Tracker format and a couple of demonstration programs.
Similar to the STOS tracker extension, but it uses the DMA sound system to play the mixed-sample rather than the soundchip, which speeds things up significantly! It has the advantage of being able to play modfiles without conversion (although it does need 20Kb after the modfile data as a workspace). It also disables ACIA interrupts. The Ninja tracker extension lets you play back mods at up to 21Khz. Unlike STOS tracker, the playback frequency is set with one of the extension's commands instead of having to mess around with separate extensions.
As with the Tracker extension, better playback quality chews up more CPU time. You can use the soundchip while a mod is playing to play sound samples.
The Ninja tracker package includes the interpreter and compiler versions of the extension (the compiler version being *significantly* smaller than the interpreter version!) and a demonstration program.
This uses Bitmaster's DSP modplayer for playback of mods. The playback is 50KHz and since it uses the DSP for mixing the samples and the Falcon DMA for output, it uses virtually no CPU time. It also lets you play samples using the DMA, but the music is temporarily shut off while the sample plays. You can, however, play samples with the music in the same way as with the Ninja extension. The playback routine is cleaner than the others, and doesn't affect any of STOS's interrupts.
The Following Information from The Phantom
These sound files are better in sound quality than chip music files but take up more CPU time. MOD files can be quite large but can be packed down to a lot smaller size.
MODS are now one of the, if not the, best music replay formats avalible for the Atari series of Computers they can sound good and don't make people turn down the volume or turn the music off stright away ( And they sound great from 25 watt speakers attached to the STE outputs with full bass and volume! :) )
They have the added advantage of not having to be converted unlike ABK files and the sound quality is better with more CPU time left.
Depending on what computer you have will depend on witch replay method used.
You can get some mods form the STOS File Site
With any computer you can use two replay methods both of which are MC programs. The first is a MC program whic appeared on STOSSER 17 which used all the time availble but the MODS sounded great. The other method is a MC program which came with a Missing Link disk from Goodmans PDL with this MC program you had to assemble the MC program you self but you just had to change the the name of the inculed MOD file.
With and STE or greater you can use the Ninja Tracker Extension which lets you replay at either 5, 8.5 ,12 ,14 ,16 or 21 KHz on ANY STE+ with a DMA sound system. Depending on the quailty of the play back that you want will determine how fast you have the replay and how much CPU time you have left. You can still play samples using vaious replay commands but I'm as yet to test a DMA sample with it running.
With the Falcon there are two main ways of replaying MODS. The first is with a MC program witch replays @ 50 KHz using the DSP sound system and use virtually no CPU time. The other is a command in Anthony's Falcon Extension which I have no info about as I don't have a Falcon :(
STOS Web Pages
Home of the STOS Mailing list, More STOS extensions are developed here than anywhere else,Including Falcon extensions and many other STOS related Items
This homepage contains information on the GEMMA project for STOS, an
extension which will allow GEM in STOS. There is some source code to bringing
up a GEM alertbox and how to capture the commandline in STOS.
The Phantom Soft Home Page. Home to the STOS file site and other STOS
programs produced by The Phantom
It'll contain the peek poke etc list and methods you can use to optimise
your code, and I don't just mean replacing the built-in STOS graphics
commands with ones from extensions.
Phils interests in Atari and STOS. Some of his stuff to download.
Information on using simple assembly to speed up STOS.
A Nice intro to STOS...Giving an insight to what it is, some screen shots, nicely set out,
Home of many STOS written programs, Including Adventure creator kits as reffered to in this FAQ