Amiga E

Amiga E is a programming language made for the Amiga computer by Wouter van Oortmerssen. Work on this language began in 1991 and it was first released to the public in 1993. It was created to help people write programs and applications for the Amiga.

At first, Amiga E was developed until 1997. But during that year, the Amiga lost much of its popularity because the company that owned its rights, Escom AG, went bankrupt. This made it harder for people to keep using or improving the Amiga and its tools.

Wouter van Oortmerssen said that Amiga E was very successful and became one of the most popular programming languages for the Amiga. He described it as a general-purpose language, especially good for creating system applications on the Amiga computer.

Overview

Amiga E is a programming language made for the Amiga computer. It is mostly based on the C programming language. Amiga E has some good points, like it compiles quickly, so it can be used instead of a scripting language. The code is easy to read, and it has a flexible type system, a strong module system, exception handling that is different from C++, and supports Object-oriented programming.

People used Amiga E to build the main parts of a popular Amiga graphics program called Photogenics.

"Hello, World!" example

A simple program that says "Hello, World!" in Amiga E looks like this:

PROC main()
    WriteF('Hello, World!')
ENDPROC

History

In 1993, Amiga E was first shared with the public. The first version appeared on Aminet in September, but people could see the code earlier in May.

The last version, 3.3a, came out in 1997. Later, in 1999, a special program to create Amiga E programs was released, and the full code for this program was shared freely.

Implementations and derivatives

Discontinued

Amiga E

The first compiler was made by Wouter van Oortmerssen. It supports tools written in E and creates 68000 machine code.

• Platforms: AmigaOS and similar systems.
• Targets: Originally AmigaOS with a 68000 CPU, but it can also work with the Motorola 68060 architecture.
• Status: Stable, mature, discontinued, source available, freeware.

CreativE

Created by Tomasz Wiszkowski, it is based on the GPL sources of Amiga E and adds many new features to the compiler.

• Platforms: AmigaOS and similar systems.
• Targets: Like Amiga E, with some support for newer m68k CPUs.
• Status: Stable, mature, discontinued in 2001, source available, freeware.

PowerD

Made by Martin Kuchinka, who worked with Tomasz Wiszkowski. It comes from Amiga E and CreativE but uses different syntax, so it does not work with Amiga E.

• Platforms: AmigaOS and similar systems.
• Targets: AmigaOS 3.0 or newer; needs at least a (/wiki/68020) CPU+FPU or a PowerPC (PPC); and 4MB of RAM.
• Status: Stable, mature, closed source, freeware. No updates since 2010.

YAEC

Written from scratch in Amiga E by Leif Salomonsson and shared in 2001. It uses an external assembler and linker. The project was stopped in favor of ECX.

• Platforms: AmigaOS and similar systems.
• Targets: AmigaOS 3.0 with a 68020 CPU and FPU.
• Status: Outdated, not finished, discontinued, closed source, freeware.

ECX

A compiler and tools made from scratch by Leif Salomonsson in Amiga E, with some parts in m68k and PPC assemblers. It can build itself, works with many systems, and adds many new features.

• Platforms: AmigaOS compatible systems and similar ones.
• Targets: AmigaOS 3.0, AmigaOS 4, and MorphOS with m68k or PPC processors.
• Status: Stable, mature, open source, freeware. No updates since 2013.

RE

RE was made by Marco Antoniazzi using PowerD. It is not fully compatible with Amiga E.

• Platforms: AmigaOS and similar systems.
• Targets: AmigaOS 3.0 with a 68020 CPU+FPU; PPC.
• Status: Stable, closed source, freeware. No updates since 2008.

Under development

Portabl E

Created by Christopher Handley, it is a meta-compiler made from scratch in Amiga E. It can build itself and supports many different systems.

• Platforms: AmigaOS (m68k), AmigaOS 4 (PPC), AROS, MorphOS, Linux, and Windows,
• Targets: C++ and Amiga E. The Amiga E code works with CreativE and, with certain settings, with the ECX compiler.
• Status: Stable, mature, still being developed, closed source, freeware.

E-VO

This is a version of the Amiga E compiler made by Darren Coles. It builds on the original language and includes ideas from the CreativE compiler.

• Platforms: AmigaOS and similar systems.
• Targets: Like Amiga E; AmigaOS with a (/wiki/68000) or newer CPU.
• Status: Stable, mature, still being developed, source available, freeware.