Another New/Old Amiga user

[Amiduffer]

Depends on how skillful you are with the iron. You can clip them off if you don't want to risk it. The Amiga will run fine without the battery. You'll just have to set the date and time each time you turn it on.

[gertsy]

Hi KatManDEW, Welcome back to Amiga.  I started on a ZX81 myself. Back in 1982. OMG 26 years ago.
If you want a better way of getting stuff off PC and onto Amiga you need to get a scsi CDROM and hook it into your SCSI chain. You've got a spot for it.. (o:.
Null modem is soooo slow.
Good luck
PS: Loopz is a great game. (o:

[KatManDEW]

Thanks again for all the feedback and help!

I think my Picasso is a I or II ;-(

Here's a pic of my Timex Sinclair 1000 inside my stage lighting controller. I built all the Timex Sinclair add-on hardware except for the floppy controller. I etched, drilled, and assembled all the boards in the lighting controller.

[QuikSanz]

@KatManDEW,

Always good to see someone new, um, old at the party.

 Depending on the card you have you may have trouble getting a X-Surf to work. I had a heck of a time on my GeForce 030/40Mhz.
Maybe it's a firmware thing.

Chris

[rustednail]

I love the fact that you worked on your machine with a good ol'trusty beer :cheers:  Thats how I start all my hobby projects  :crazy:

... if only I could get away with that at work, things could be much better!


Welcome back to AMI!

[KatManDEW]

QuikSanz wrote:
@KatManDEW,

Always good to see someone new, um, old at the party.

 Depending on the card you have you may have trouble getting a X-Surf to work. I had a heck of a time on my GeForce 030/40Mhz.
Maybe it's a firmware thing.

Chris

That doesn't sound good... I've always had a heck of a time getting anything to work on my Amiga  :boohoo: I can't figure out how to get WHDLoad to work...

I got that nasty old bettery out of there, and the Bridegecard and 5-1/4 inch floppy. She's back in the computer room now.

Can I use any old SCSI CD drive? Do I just get a longer SCSI cable with an extra connector, and daisy chain it with the HD on the GVP accelerator? Are there any drivers needed?

[Tenacious]

Good job removing the battery!  I replaced mine with a rechargable cordless phone battery (confirm polarity first).

The The flickerfixer output should be able to go into the input port on the Picasso II with the proper cable.  This way the Picasso will pass thru native Amiga screen modes AND output it's own resolutions.  No monitor cable swapping required.  Have you done this?

A longer SCSI cable and SCSI CDrom should be all that's required (no drivers, this is an Amiga).  You will have to set unique SCSI ID numbers (0 thru 6) for all devices connected.  If the CDrom is the last internal SCSI device on the ribbon cable, I think it will need termination.  All other internal devices should have termination turn OFF.  This termination scheme will be true of any external devices as well.

You could try for a SCSI CDwriter as well, these turn up on e-Bay from time2time.

Your machine has much potential added to it already.  A minority of us try to use Amigas for as much as possible, like surfing, Mp3s, graphics, office, faxing, etc.  This post came from an Amiga.

It would help others help you if you give more information, like motherboard revision, rom rev on the GVP SCSI controller, fast ram available, etc.

[DoogUK]

You will need a cdrom filesystem though...the idefix97 pakage works well with scsi cdroms.

[Amiduffer]

old trusty AsimCDFS

Programs to unpack them

What problems are you having with WHDload?

[KatManDEW]

Tenacious wrote:
Good job removing the battery!  I replaced mine with a rechargable cordless phone battery (confirm polarity first).

The The flickerfixer output should be able to go into the input port on the Picasso II with the proper cable.  This way the Picasso will pass thru native Amiga screen modes AND output it's own resolutions.  No monitor cable swapping required.  Have you done this?

A longer SCSI cable and SCSI CDrom should be all that's required (no drivers, this is an Amiga).  You will have to set unique SCSI ID numbers (0 thru 6) for all devices connected.  If the CDrom is the last internal SCSI device on the ribbon cable, I think it will need termination.  All other internal devices should have termination turn OFF.  This termination scheme will be true of any external devices as well.

You could try for a SCSI CDwriter as well, these turn up on e-Bay from time2time.

Your machine has much potential added to it already.  A minority of us try to use Amigas for as much as possible, like surfing, Mp3s, graphics, office, faxing, etc.  This post came from an Amiga.

It would help others help you if you give more information, like motherboard revision, rom rev on the GVP SCSI controller, fast ram available, etc.

I'm jealous. I want to post with my Amiga!

Do I need to inspect for physical revision numbers on components, is there a software way to do it? Workbench says 865,072 Graphics mem, and 3,962,872 other mem. My GVP board only has one memory slot filled.

[Pyromania]

You need a Video Toaster in that baby.

 :-D

[Tenacious]

You'll probobly have to inspect.  The roms normally have a white paper label. The custom coprocessors on the MB will require you to interpret their part numbers with info on the net.

There are a number of system diagnostic/interrogation utilities available on aminet: SysInfo, Dostrace, SnoopDos, SCSIinquire, Scout, AIBB, etc, that are very useful.  I've never used them though to get chip revisions (may not work).

You probably have 1 Meg of chip ram on the MB (typical for a 2000) and 4 Megs of fast memory on the GVP.  I think GVP made 16 Meg modules that are now harder to find.

GVP made great peripherals and expansions.  Unfortunatly, they insisted on making custom memory modules.  Someone else may suggest other memory alternatives if you can't find more GVP.

[KatManDEW]

Amiduffer wrote:
old trusty AsimCDFS

Programs to unpack them

What problems are you having with WHDload?

Thanks for the link to the CD file system.

I can unpack stuff OK. I have DirOpus.

When I try to run the installer for the games on the WHDLoad site, it goes through the motions and then says "Sorry.... an Error has occured! GETENV: String too long"

[QuikSanz]

@KatManDEW,

For GVP memory talk to Joe @
" http://www.softhut.com/cgi-bin/test/Web_store/web_store.cgi ". I've been shopping there for many years. Good service. Drop an E-Mail, He should have good stock available.

Chris

[KatManDEW]

Wow! I'm really getting excited! I did Google search for GVP RAM yesterday and founf that memory at Software Hut. Do you think I should get three 4 meg SIMM's to fill the slots on my GVP 040?

I still don't understand exactly what the Minimig and the ACUBE are? Are they hybrid machines that run the Amiga OS?

What's the "ultimate Amiga" now-a-days (not including a Toaster). A 4000 tower? Acube?

I did find the cable to connect my Flicker Fixer to the input on my Picasso. I have some purdy video now.

Damn you guys for stirring up my old Amiga lust!  :-D

[Amiduffer]

How to Amiga WB

Try that. Tons of info on setting up your workbench and other useful info. Perhaps you need to replace Install (in your C: drawer) with Installer.

Minimig is just a modern incarnation of an A500, so that all the various specialty chips are combined into a single chip, with the means of using PC monitors, mice, & keyboards. All on a tiny PCB. You put game programs that are in ADF format on a Compact Flash, which acts as a HD. Its a portable Amiga.

Be sure to contact Joe at Software Hut about the memory. Their website is seriously out of date and stuff they list hasn't been there for years. He'll usually get back to you pretty quickly.