Resurrecting my Amiga

Someone said they abandoned their Amiga a few years ago; I too did that and after much frustration at trying to get the same output from my PC, I'm thinking my Amiga wasn't so bad after all.  My problem(s) are, I need a new keyboard (or is the PS keyboard adapter a good alternative) and I need to know the alternatives to getting IFF files to/from my Amiga i.e., Amiga Explorer & cable, save Photoshop images in IFF format (won't work in my Amiga disk drive, will they?)  As you can see, I'm pretty green about all this and would appreciate any help?  Thanks very much! :-D

[odin]

Welcome back Bill :-),

What Amiga do you have?

The PS2 keyboard adapters do a fine job, but when you get one pay attention to getting one which supports 'multiple keypresses'. Meaning that if you for example push up and left with the cursor keys that a game character goes up AND left. The more crappy keyboard interfaces sometimes only register the last key presses (like mine :-x).

As for transferring files from your PC to you Amiga a network would be the coolest solution. Slap a Ethernet card in the PC (10$) and Amiga (I'm guessing you have an A1200; ~40$) and you're done (well almost ;-).

A cable and Amiga Explorer might also work, I have no experience with in though.

It's also possible to use PC formatted floppies (720k DD only, as most Amigas only have DD floppy drives) in your Amiga as long as you've got WB 3.x (Workbench).

Hope this helps a bit.

[cecilia]

since i've had to transfer files to and from my amiga to pc for years now, i have always used removable media that is formated in fat (pc). syquests, jaz, zips and floppies. use OS3.9 because it's cool as hell and get fat95 from aminet (long file names) and you should have no problems. well, none on the amiga side anyway :-D

while photoshop can read and save iff's, i believe you have to make sure the plug-in for that is in the right place. i don't have photoshop on my laptop at the moment (hate it!), so i can't tell you where to look. also, photoshop does not know about the version of iff's that ImageFX can now save. that is - with an alpha channel. this probably doesn't mean alot unless you do alot of work in IFX versions 4 to 4.5

and if you do, i would say save image files on the amiga in PNG (hate tga - way too damn big!).

[Desler]

Hi Bills
I dont know your amiga configuration. But if you like me is stuck (happily stuck of course  :-) ) with an bog standard a1200, you should consider UAE. On a decent pc you'll get quite nice speeds.
If you still want to transfer files from pc -> amiga you could use a parallel cable and the program pc2amiga (or similar) these work quite nice for me

[carls]

@BillS

Hi!

You're not telling us what kind of Amiga you have! What version of Workbench are you running?

From Workbench 3.0 and up your Amiga can read MS-DOS formatted disks (from your PC), although they would have to be 720kB DD disks. Only the A4000 can read 1.44MB HD disks.

Saving your images as IFF files in Photoshop shouldn't really be needed. All modern Amiga graphics programs today can handle GIF, PNG and in most cases JPEG.

Personal Paint, which is freely available from Aminet, handles PNG files perfectly. If you have a graphics card you might want to take a look at PerfectPaint, also for free on Aminet.

You can also convert most formats to IFF on your Amiga using GfxCon from Aminet.

I'm telling you this because IFF files tend to get rather big, especially in 24-bit format, so it's a tedious process transferring them from one computer to another.

Thank you all for your quick response to my questions?  My Amiga is a 2000HD running WB 38.35, Kickstart 37.175.  At some point in time, I added a GVP G-Force 030 Combo (accelator?).  My Graphics Memory is 991232 and Other Mem is 8176136.  Sounds to me like the PS2 keyboard adapter (that accepts multiple key presses) is the most expedient resolution of that problem.  I have my PC's and a IBM Thinkpad laptop already connected to a Linksys hub.  If you are saying that I can install a network card in my Amiga and connect it to my existing network, I think that sounds like the ideal solution for communicating between platforms.  Thanks again!

[Herewegoagain]

If you are saying that I can install a network card in my Amiga and connect it to my existing network, I think that sounds like the ideal solution for communicating between platforms. Thanks again!

Yes, you can do just that.  There are a number of ways to do the transfers once configured.  I just hooked up my A3000 to my Linksys router yesterday.    I've had the Ariadne II ethernet card for a couple of years (since they first came out) but never used it much.  Since the new version of Ibrowse just came out, I wanted to try it, so I got the A3000 working on my network.  Downloaded the Ibrowse file with the PC and started up an FTP server on my PC sharing the files I needed on the Amiga side.  From the Amiga, I used GUIFTP.  (well, actually I finally just used the ftp command at a CLI prompt as GUIFTP didnt let me in)  In a matter of a couple of minutes I was surfing the net through my broadband cable connection with my Amiga and Ibrowse 2.3!  

[odin]

For some information on Amiga network cards check here.

In an Amiga 2000 you can use Zorro2 expansion cards, not PCMCIA. Those are for A600 and A1200 only. I paid ~60EUR for my AriadneII network card. A new XSurf card would cost ~100EUR.

As for a keyboard interface see here (40USD).

You will also need a TCP/IP stack for connecting to your LAN, such as Genesis (included with OS 3.9). I think the version numbers you said are WB2.x isn't it? It would be better to upgrade to OS 3.9 (~40EUR), but then you would need Kickstart 3.1 (~30EUR). You need a CD-ROM for that (~60EUR for a SCSI drive?). To use OS3.9 you'd be best of with a graphics card (cheap second hand one: 50EUR?).

So total cost:
100+40+40+30+60+50=320EUR
(1EUR~1USD).

*whoa*...thats a load of cash :-).

[Quixote]

BillS wrote:

...If you are saying that I can install a network card in my Amiga and connect it to my existing network, I think that sounds like the ideal solution for communicating between platforms.  Thanks again!

;-) Another thing to add would be Samba.  Samba was originaly created for UNIX, but it has been ported to other Operating Systems, including Amiga OS.  Configuring it can be tricky, but once finished it allows the Amiga to participate in Windows' Network Neighborhood.  File management over your network couldn't be simpler!

:-D It's what I use here; one PC and two 'miggies....

[Mike_Amiga]

odin wrote:
Welcome back Bill :-),


It's also possible to use PC formatted floppies (720k DD only, as most Amigas only have DD floppy drives) in your Amiga as long as you've got WB 3.x (Workbench).

I've managed to reformat PC formatted disks and use them fine in my A500+ which only has Kickstart 2.0.

No idea hoow it works the other way around but my mate used to use crossdos to transfer old mods to his PC before flogging his Amiga.

[odin]

Yes but crossdos isn't included as standard with OS2.x is it? That's what I ment really.

[Mike_Amiga]

True.

Hello!  I'm new to Amiga.org (well, not really - I've been lurking for about a year now) and would like to ask a question I hope, in a similiar vein.  Last year, I took the plunge and bought an Amiga 1200.  Unfortunately, I moved in with my brother in another city, and had to leave my Amiga behind,  when I moved back home.  To make a long story short, when I retrieved it, it wasn't working anymore.  I believe somone tampered with it because I went inside its case hoping to replace a burnt fuse, and found the cable to the floppy drive disconnected.  My question is, does anybody out there know where I can have my Miggy repaired?  Thanks.  I greatly appreciate it.

[Quixote]

Focal_Loco fretted:

...My question is, does anybody out there know where I can have my Miggy repaired?  Thanks.  I greatly appreciate it.

;-) Depending on where you live, there may be a computer shop in your area that once serviced Amigas, back in the day.  That's the situation here, but I suspect that it's rare.  Try letting your fingers do the walking.

:-D Good luck!

[hagar]

odin wrote:
Yes but crossdos isn't included as standard with OS2.x is it? That's what I ment really.

I belive that crossdos was included with OS2.1, however I'm not 100% sure.