Aros and iMica’s can now read/write Amiga floppy disks with PCI Catweasel MK4.

[clusteruk]

After some time tracking down a suitable developer with the skills needed to carry out this work I finally contacted Ian Gledhill in the New Year and the project for Aros based iMica’s to read and write Amiga floppy disk drives was started.

Whilst there was a bounty for this work, the hardware was not being supplied and so it never got claimed. So we supplied an iMica Atom with PCI Catweasel MK4 we brought from AmigaKit and a compatible floppy drive in February and this project is now in final testing stage.

This project source code will reside in the Aros source library for all to use and will further support the growing realisation from most Amiga users that Aros is a very viable next generation Amiga platform freely available and running on a large amount of commodity hardware.

I would like to thanks Ian Gledhill for his professional manner and skill in this project and if you would like to beta test this and own a Catweasel MK4 PCI card then please PM me or email ian at ian.gledhill (at) btinternet.com or email me at clusteruk@hotmail.com

If you have a Catweasel and this has excited you, please take the time to send a donation to Ian for all his hard work at his paypal account ian.gledhill (at) btinternet.com

Finally, there are still some tweaks to finish this but in the end you will be able to run some Amiga 68k programs and games through Janus-UAE as well as accessing the disks from Aros and Janus-UAE. I will have this on show at the Amiga show in Bletchley in June for you all to play with.

All the best

Steve Jones

http://www.clusteruk.com

[ElPolloDiabl]

Good work.

[trekiej]

Good going Steve.

[Darrin]

Nice work

I have a "retro PC" running XP at home with a Catweasel and 3.5 & 5.25" drives fitted.

Unfortunately I'm away on business for another 3 weeks, but this might actually make me download AROS and give it a look.  I'm supposed to have 4 weeks off when I get home and I was going to dedicate it to the Amiga (My C-One needs a SID chip fitting and some troubleshooting, my A4000T needs PCI video & sound cards installing and now this...)  

[Dwyloc]

Sounds good I have a Catweasel mk4 that I don't use much these days but it could be useful for accessing Amiga disk under AROS.

Are there ant plans to support the joystick ports as well as floppy access as it would be nice to be able to use them to use real Amiga joysticks for playing old Amiga games under UAE and AROS.

[clusteruk]

Sounds good I have a Catweasel mk4 that I don't use much these days but it could be useful for accessing Amiga disk under AROS.

Are there ant plans to support the joystick ports as well as floppy access as it would be nice to be able to use them to use real Amiga joysticks for playing old Amiga games under UAE and AROS.

At moment only really pushing for the floppy bit but if popular then the owners could get that done. After all i make nothing from this work, purely did it for Aros improvement and for examples like yourself.

[Darrin]

At moment only really pushing for the floppy bit but if popular then the owners could get that done. After all i make nothing from this work, purely did it for Aros improvement and for examples like yourself.

Ah, no joysticks yet...

That's why I like my Minimig so much because I can plug in my classic joysticks to play games.

[ognix]

Thanks a lot, and go on!
One more step further into "classic" Amiga stuff integrated in new Amiga environments!
Still no AROS installation, but always more and more pushed to try it!

[kickstart]

Now just need to execute the data on that amiga disk.

[clusteruk]

Now just need to execute the data on that amiga disk.

I believe this will be possible when Janus-UAE is finished, already partly there now.

[kickstart]

Well if i need to use uae prefer to install winuae, totally compatible.

[Heinz]

Well if i need to use uae prefer to install winuae, totally compatible.

Does WinUAE lauch your Amiga App in a windows-window, just like it was a real Windows App, by double clicking it ?

No ?

So where is the advantage over AROS's Janus UAE ?

[kickstart]

No

But the app is launched on a emulated classic amiga. Windows is just used for boot.

[clusteruk]

No

But the app is launched on a emulated classic amiga. Windows is just used for boot.

I have no problem with people using windows for WinUAE, it keeps them interested in Amiga while Aros becomes what they want.

[motrucker]

Looks like I've finally got to get off my rear end and put this setup together. This is just the news I was waiting for! Many thanks!