I know it's been a while, but it doesn't look like I left a comment on this thread. I did see it at the time you posted it Omer, but was incredibly busy work wise at the time. Quite a find.
I thought I'd bump this topic again mainly in relation to the discussion about what we mean by AGI. It turns out that at one point in time, they may have referred to the whole thing, and even specifically to the language, as AGDS. If this is official Sierra AGI documentation, then this is what it has to say:
AGDS - Adventure Game Development System
AGDS was developed as a fast means to implement adventure games using a
machine portable language. It outwardly resembles the programming
language "C".
AGDS is a specialized set of commands which help manipulate objects on a
3-D plane. Before looking at the commands, it is important to understand
some basic terminology.
There is only one reference in that document to AGI, and that is simply to reference the other AGI.DOC documentation. The implications of this reference are quite interesting though. It seems to suggest that both AGDS and AGI coexisted as different terms. If you read both documents, the terminology isn't consistent though. One is about the "Actions, Tests and Flags" in the Adventure Game Interpreter. The other has 10 references to AGDS and uses the term to refer to various things, three of the references already listed above, and the rest listed below:
AGDS works like traditional cartoon animation
AGDS cells are cycled at the rate of 9 per second
Each cell contains the specific bit-maps AGDS displays on-screen.
AGDS determines which LOOP is displayed, based on the direction of an object.
AGDS always automatically loads, and executes ROOM 0.
AGDS pictures are composed of a picture screen, and a priority screen.
To accomplish this, AGDS scans directly down the control priority until it finds some "non-control" priority.
So AGDS is used above to refer to the whole system, and in relation to the VIEWs, PICTUREs, and LOGIC. For example, "AGDS cells", "AGDS pictures", "AGDS is a specialized set of commands".
Hmmm. Maybe AGDS was the original name and they changed it to AGI later on?
(off now to locate that HWM topic with the original AGI interpreter source code in it, with the purpose of doing further terminology investigation)
Edit:
Direct link below:
http://sciprogramming.com/community/index.php?topic=1418.msg6446#msg6446[it's attached at the bottom of that post]
I couldn't find any references to AGDS in there, but it does reference AGI quite a bit, mainly to say its for the AGI.EXE file (e.g. "Memory Map for AGI.EXE 10/07/87"), but it also says this:
** Routines for handling menus in AGI
Edit Edit:
What is even more bizarre about the AGDS name is that that is what was used here:
http://www.ifarchive.org/indexes/if-archiveXprogrammingXagi.htmlhttp://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php/AGIWiki/AGDShttp://www.agidev.com/articles/agispec/agispecs-11.html#agds...for the Russian set of tools that were created years ago for building AGI games. AGDS in that particular case apparently stood for "Adventure Game Design System", which is very similar but appears to be complete coincidence.
