My BBC Master
 

 

AMX Mouse and Software
july 2020
 

Advanced Memory Systems is well known for their AMX mouse products.
They released several software packages and all where operated with the mouse. Their most well know packages are the 'AMX Art' (mouse driven paint program) and the 'AMX Page Maker' packages. (a mouse driven desktop publishing program)

Over the Internet all kind of bits and pieces can be found or downloaded concerning the AMX mouse products. With this page I would like to bring all the bits together to one page and one overview. And if possible with extra help or guides to use them.
So below you will find all the ROMs and disc images I collected over the past view years. I scanned the manuals and OCR-ed them so that it is easy to find the right info very easy when searching a document.

The list is not yet complete, and it would be great if I could make a complete collection of all the different software created by AMS.

If anyone has anything to add to this list, please let me know so it can be added to this page.

Still to do :

  • AMX Page Maker - ROMS / Manual scan / OCR / Discs
  • Stop Press - ROMS / Manual scan / OCR / Discs
  • AMX Design - ROM / Manual Scan / OCR / Disc
  • AMX (Super) Art - ROMS / Manual scan / OCR
  • AMX MAX - ROM / Manual scan / OCR / Keystrip
  • AMX Desk - Manual scan / OCR / Discs
  • AMX Utilities - Manual / Disc
  • Extra! Extra! Stop Press Utilities - Manual Scan / OCR

 

 
..

 

DESK / Max

Desk and Max are both desktop interfaces, where you can launch, copy and do other commands using your mouse instead of typing commands. All with icons an symbols and point and click.
Desk was (i believe) the first version released and was based on a disc.
Later Max was created and was on a ROM. This gave the advantage you could call Max just by pressing F8+BREAK (DFS) or F9+BREAK (ADFS) combination.


       
AMX Desk V1.0                    
AMX Desk V1.03                    
MAX                
                             
                             
                             

 

 

EXTRA! STOP PRESS UTILITIES

Extra! is literally what the title says. This software was released on 2 discs (40T) and has several extra programs to the AMX Stop Press package. It gave the possibility to preset your pages disc so you would not have to put in the system disc to launch Stop Press. It also gives extra printing stetting options and colour setting and much more.
It also has loads of extra Fonts and Clip-Art.
As far as I know their has been only one release of the software.


       
Extra! Stop Press Utilities                    
manual - high res.                          
manual - low res.                          
                             
                             
                             

 

 

PageMaker / Stop Press

Page Maker (later Stop Press) is, if I'm right, the software package where AMX was famous for.
This is a fully WYSIWYG DTP software bundle and all operated with a mouse using point and click.
The bundle came with a view discs and 2 ROMs.
The discs included the system startup software and fonts. (later I believe the ROMs where on the disc as images and could be loaded in the SWR for use)
Both PageMaker and Stop Press always need a real DFS disc for the pages you are editing. The system disc or other utilities can be run from another device, like ADSF hard drive or RFS. Did not yet figure out how to fool the software.
Page Maker is only on 2 ROMs. The mouse drivers are included in the support ROM from PageMaker itself. So there is no extra Mouse Support ROM needed.


       
PageMaker V1.3                    
PageMaker V1.7                    
Works with Stop Press V1.9 discs                            
Page Maker Manual - High Res.                          
Page Maker Manual - Low Res.                          
Stop Press V1.9                      
Disc version                    
Watford Electronics Release 1989
Thanks to tom_seddon
                 
Stop Press 1989 version manual - High Res.                          
Stop Press 1989 version manual - Low Res.                          
 Stop Press Electron version                            
 Version 1.01                            
                             
                             
                             

 

 

(super) Art

AMX (Super) Art is the mouse driven drawing software. The versions 1 and 2 are the monochrome versions, working in MODE4. Also the art software was given on disc, and the mouse drivers where on ROM. Later the Art software was also included in the ROM and was the disc only needed for extra functions within the Arts software.
Versions 3 and later where the colour versions and worked in all graphical modes of the BBC.
All versions had the possibility for the user to use the Mouse software in their own BASIC programs.


       
AMX Art V2.1                    
Mouse drivers on ROM and the Art software is on the disc.                            
AMX Super Art V3.41                    
works with V3.61 utilities disc.                            
AMX Super Art V3.61   ?                
Doesn't work well on real Master trying to find a working version.                            
AMX Super Art for Master                      
This was a Master version of AMX Super Art (ROM version 4 and 5)
Needs 4 SWRAM banks
                           
                             
                             
                             

 

 

Utilities

AMX Utilities is a software package for people who had a mouse and the AMX support ROM. On the disc there where some extra utilities for the AMX mouse including AMX Art 2 (MODE 4 only), Sketch (a MODE 2 drawing program), Utilities for the Art program and some other extras.
Comparing to the AMX Art V2.1, mentioned above, this software package had more then only AMX Art.

This program needs a support prior to V3.41. This because from version 3 the ART software was on the ROM. Below you can find all you need to run the Utilities and programs.


       
AMX Utilities V1.2