The Absolute Beginners Guide To Amos V2.0               
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                          by A.Pine & S.Bye (C) 1994                        
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                                 Chapter One                
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The purpose of this tutorial is to help complete beginners and by beginners 
I mean people who know how to load Amos but are confused by the hundreds of 
commands and want a simple explanation of what they do. 

The best place to start is at the beginning, so I will be taking you step by
step through some simple but very useful commands, when you have finished
reading this chapter load in EXAMPLE1.Amos.
Don`t worry if you do not understand everything first time as the example 
program offers more information and advice on this chapter. 

These are the commands that we will be covering in this chapter:

CLS N

PAPER N

CURS OFF

HIDE

PRINT 

WAIT KEY

EDIT

I bet you can already guess what some of the above commands do?
Here is a detailed rundown on each:

CLS N
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CLS is an abbreviation of CLear Screen and does exactly that, it clears the
screen to any colour you want, that is what the N represents. N, in this case
can be any number from 0 to 15. The number you assign to CLS represents a
colour so if you typed CLS 0 Amos would clear the screen of any text or 
graphics and turn the screen black. You can use CLS without a colour and CLS
will automatically use 0. So CLS on it's own would have the same effect as 
CLS 0.
 
When you load EXAMPLE1.Amos try changing the number after CLS to see it`s
effect. Don`t worry, you can`t do any harm by typing CLS 197540 or something,
Amos will just tell you that you have a syntax error in your program and 
place the cursor on the offending line.

Paper N
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Paper is the background colour of any text you PRINT to the screen, the N
works exactly the same as the N in CLS N.  This is one of those commands
that you will understand better by changing the value of N and running the
example program. Make sure you tinker with it to understand it properly.

CURS OFF
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This is a nice straight forward command. It simply gets rid of the flashing
text cursor that would otherwise appear on your screen.  
You can also use CURS ON to reinstate the cursor if needed.  
Try changing or deleting the CURS OFF command to see it`s effects in action.

HIDE
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Luckily for me this command is easy to use and easy to describe. 
HIDE, literally HIDEs the mouse pointer from view while your program runs.
The opposite to HIDE is SHOW which reinstates the mouse pointer.

PRINT
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PRINT enables you to PRINT text to the screen. Sounds great, but there is a
small catch. Whatever you want PRINTed must be inside quotes this isn`t as 
bad as it sounds when you look at the following examples:

PRINT "HELLO THERE"
PRINT "JUST REMEMBER TO PUT"
PRINT "THE QUOTES"
PRINT "BEFORE AND AFTER YOUR TEXT"
PRINT "Don`t forget you can use numbers and symbols as well"
PRINT "LIKE THIS  @#$%^&*()_+|1234567890"

Take a close look at EXAMPLE1.amos and experiment by changing the text inside
the quotes.

WAIT KEY
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One of my favourite commands this one. Nice and straight forward and 
powerful.  WAIT KEY will force Amos to WAIT until a KEY is pressed by the
user.  Try taking this out of EXAMPLE1.Amos to see what happens.

EDIT
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Edit stops your program and returns you back to the EDITor where you can 
continue adding to and making changes to your masterpiece.
This command is not really necessary at all, as all you have to do is press
the space bar to return to the Editor when a program ends.  
EDIT just saves you pressing the space bar and looks cleaner and neater.
Delete it from EXAMPLE1.Amos to see what it`s like without it.

We have covered seven commands already. I know it`s a lot to take on
board and understand in one go so read the above explanations of each 
command again if need be.  It doesn`t matter wether you can remember them but
it does matter if you can UNDERSTAND them.  After loading EXAMPLE1.Amos and 
playing about with it for a while, get a note book and jot down briefly in 
your own words what each command does, because I can guarantee you that you 
will not remember them later on and a quick glance at your notes will refresh
your memory. If you have an Amos manual (some people own the cover disk 
version) look up each of the above commands for a different explanation of 
them. This can often help a lot.

I have mentioned EXAMPLE1.Amos so many times you must be champing at 
the bit to LOAD it, so off you go and do it.  Don`t be afraid to read this
chapter again if there is anything you do not understand. Good luck.

                             End of chapter one
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