Last updated on August 19th, 2025 at 10:23 am
I heard there is a code compiler at the party…You know I always liked the code running..You know, some people, they like to see the code compile.
They like to see the green lights, the clean builds, the perfect outputs.
But me?
I like to see the code run.
I like to watch it do whatever it wants.
No safety nets, no hand-holding—just pure, raw execution.
I like to see the variables mutate, the stack grow wild, the memory allocations hunting for space like predators in the RAM.
I like to set a breakpoint, step through each line, and just… observe.
Sometimes, I just let it go, see what happens when the logic gets hungry, when the loops start chasing their own tails, when the pointers wander off into the unknown.
It’s beautiful, you know?
Watching the code do whatever it wants.
That’s real power.
That’s Amiga.
For anyone still developing software natively on the Amiga, Codecraft is a game-changer. This powerful, free Integrated Development Environment (IDE) brings modern coding conveniences to the classic Amiga platform, tightly integrating editing, building, running, and debugging into one seamless interface. Designed for AmigaOS 3.2.3 and later, Codecraft leverages the native TextEdit editor and adds a rich layer of developer-friendly features that make coding on the Amiga a far more productive and enjoyable experience.
Unified Development at Your Fingertips
Codecraft organizes your entire project as a hierarchical tree of source files, giving you a clear overview of your codebase. Its modern text editing capabilities, built on the familiar Amiga TextEdit, provide smooth, efficient coding without sacrificing the native feel. Whether you’re working on a small utility or a complex application, everything you need — editing, building, executing, and debugging — is accessible from one unified user interface.
Build and Debug with Confidence
One of Codecraft’s standout features is its seamless integration with your existing build system. Whether you use shell scripts, Makefiles, or custom setups, Codecraft invokes your build commands directly, letting you compile your project without leaving the IDE.
Debugging is where Codecraft truly shines. You can set breakpoints directly in the editor and then run your program, stepping through your code line by line. This source-level debugging is compatible with nearly every Amiga compiler that produces the standard DEBUG LINE hunks, with extensive support already proven for SAS/C and E compilers. Impressively, the developers spent months reverse-engineering SAS/C’s 30-year-old debug format to enable variable inspection, allowing you to watch your program’s internal state in real time.
Minimal Requirements, Maximum Impact
Codecraft runs on any Amiga with a 68000 CPU or better, requiring AmigaOS 3.2.3 or newer, 1MB of free hard drive space, and 1MB of FastRAM. While these are modest requirements, faster systems with more RAM will naturally provide a smoother development experience, especially for larger projects.
Open Source and Actively Maintained
As an open-source project hosted on GitLab, Codecraft benefits from active development and community input. Its roadmap includes expanding support for additional compilers and languages, contingent on those compilers producing compatible debug information. This ongoing evolution ensures that Codecraft remains relevant and increasingly powerful for Amiga developers.
The requirements for Codecraft include having at least 1 MB of FastRAM. While the Amiga 500 typically comes with 512 KB of Chip RAM, many setups have extra FastRAM expansions; however, a stock Amiga 500 may not have sufficient FastRAM. Additionally, a hard drive or storage device is needed to hold the system and development tools.
Codecraft requires AmigaOS 3.2.3 or later. Since the original Amiga 500 shipped with earlier versions like Workbench 1.3 or 2.0, a system upgrade to AmigaOS 3.2.3 is necessary, as it is not the standard for the Amiga 500. The program integrates with the native TextEdit editor and supports compilation and debugging with several compilers, primarily SAS/C and E, among others.
