AtariWiki V3: Action
Table of Contents Action! Background Examples ACTION! source code Thanks Blogs Manuals and Docs New ACTION! versions > 3.6 CAR-Images ROM-Images ATR-Images XEX-Files Mini-LIBs (and/or independant Runtime Parts) Functions Code Tools Misc Still missing: Graphics Utilities Library and Shape Editor Action Articles in Magzines Analog Antic ATARImagazin CK Computer Kontakt Atari Magazine ACTION! ads Cross Compiler for ACTION!
Reviewers at the time gushed about the system. They noted that practically every aspect was superior to anything available at the time; compiling was almost instantaneous, the resulting code ran almost as fast as hand-coded assembler, the full-screen editor was universally loved, and the entire system took up only 8k due to clever memory management. The only complaint, also universal, was the poor quality of the original manual set.
Action! uses a greatly cut-down version of the ALGOL syntax, and thus bears strong similarities with Pascal and C, which were also derived from ALGOL. Like those languages, Action! is procedural, with programs essentially consisting of a large collection of functions that call each other. It lacked encapsulation or data hiding, but that is not a serious concern in the limited program sizes available on an 8-bit machine. Syntactically it looks very similar to Pascal, with the exception that it uses ALGOL 68 DO/OD style bracketing rather than Pascal's BEGIN/END.
