Blitz:Versions

Blitz Basic / AmiBlitz is available in a couple of different versions. This article describes the main versions and some of the differences between them.

Blitz Basic 2

This is the last commercial version of Blitz Basic released for the Amiga before the developers moved it to the PC instead. It came on floppy disk with a decent, ring-bound manual and provided a number of different options for use depending on the computer setup. It is no longer available commercially, but can be found easily enough should you want it. The last (and by far most popular) release was version 2.1.

This version could be used directly from floppy disk for people with unexpanded Amigas, and provides a decent editor and compiler setup with all the core elements available for use. Users with a hard drive and more RAM could add many more libraries of extra commands (known as "Userlibs"), a better debugger and a better editor, all of which were provided on the packaged floppies as optional extras.

The Blitz Support Suite was released as an add-on for this version of Blitz Basic. This added an editor that was better again, an updated debugger, updated userlibs with many bugfixes and additions, and some extra tools for making development easier. The Blitz Support Suite can be downloaded free of charge.

AmiBlitz 2

When support for the Amiga was dropped, the developers released the sourcecode of Blitz Basic to the Amiga community for further development under the condition that a different name was used. Thus AmiBlitz 2 came to exist, which is essentially Blitz Basic 2 with some improvements and including all the important updates from the Blitz Support Suite.

Some new features were added to the compiler in this version which allow some clever new tricks, e.g. inline PPC assembly code, but all the new and updated features and functionality mean it requires a higher specification Amiga to run than the original. A hard drive, FPU and extra RAM are required at a minimum.