Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga community support ideas => Topic started by: ikonsgr on July 29, 2012, 10:47:03 AM
-
[UPDATE] I've just received feedback for using the kit with AMIGA 500+ : Transfer times are reduced ~50% against AMIGA 500! You can copy an adf image to the disk in just 75 seconds!!
(Finally found something that ECS chipset along with kickstart 2.0 made a REAL difference from OCS kick 1.3: I/O ports work faster! (http://www.amibay.com/images/smilies/smile.gif) )
If you happen to have a "humble" Amiga 500 or 500+ like myself ,without any "serious" addons (except maybe from an extra 512k ram and a 2nd floppy...) you would probably tempted many times by the numerous games that are widely availiable today, in the form of adf images,and how you could enjoy them on your beloved Amiga. Or perhaps, you have some programs or games (even saved games...(http://www.amibay.com/images/smilies/smile.gif)) that you'd like to transfer them as adf images and use them with winuae or just take adf backups!
Up untill now, the options we have where:
1) Use a serial cable and some porgram like amiga explorer which is very cheap and rather easy procedure, but,unfortunately the poor 68000/7.16Mhz of an A500 can't give you nothing faster than 19.2kbps transfer rate e.g. at least 8 MINUTES to transfer one adf image!!!
2)Use some floppy emu with sd card.Again,this "solution" is rather expensive (~90euro),and it doesn't give you any noticeable speed improvement,as the use of a fast sd card might suggest,the speed of amiga accessing adf images on sd card, is more or less of a classic floppy disk drive.
3)Use a CATWEASEL MK4 PLUS PCI card .Of course this card can do much more than transfer adf files to amiga disks, and for that, it's rather expensive too (~120euro including postage)
Having to face this situation, i decided to try and "fill the gap" between the cheap but slow serial transfer "solution", and the fast but expensive floppy emu or catweasel pci card alternative. After a lot of searching,testing and programming, i've come up with a "solution" that , not only combines the cheap cost of the serial cable with MUCH more transfer speed,but also, is SUPER easy and simple to do it! (http://eab.abime.net/images/smilies/wink.gif)
FIRST THE "INGRIDIENTS" for the..."recipe":
1) An amiga 500 and it's psu (http://www.amibay.com/images/smilies/smile.gif) .Frankly you wont be needing ANYTHING else for the procedure,not even a monitor or tv connected to your amiga !(extremely usefull if there is a realtive big distance between your amiga and pc or if you dont have enough space for the monitor near your pc)
2) A PC running windows (XP,VISTA,7 32bit or 64bit) equiped with a parallel port. .Dont worry if your motherboard doesn't have any parallel port, you can find countless pci/pcie parallel cards on ebay, almost for nothing, (i bought mine for less than 3euros... (http://eab.abime.net/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif) )
3) A special kit i make, where you can find it here:http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/AMIGA-PC-A...item1c293ad68c (http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/AMIGA-PC-ADF-TRANSFER-KIT-THE-EASIEST-FASTEST-SIMPLEST-WAY-TO-DO-IT-/120950806156?pt=UK_VintageComputing_RL&hash=item1c293ad68c) .For ~10pounds (including postage), you will get a special custom made parallel cable and 1 amiga boot disk. (bellow i give you all the neccesary info to try and make it yourself too! (http://eab.abime.net/images/smilies/wink.gif) )
4) Many amiga formated 3.5" disks to transfer your beloved games adf images!
Also you will need one of these: http://sdrv.ms/M6Xe6g . Download the apropriate file according to your windows version (adf_transfer_32 for 32bit windows and adf_transfer_64 for 64bit windows) and uncompress it anywhere in your hard disk.
Now for the "cooking":
FOR TRANSFERING ADF IMAGES FROM THE PC TO AMIGA 500:
1) Connect amiga and pc with the cable (beware to plug the right end on each side,if you put it either way it will not work!)
2) Power on your amiga
3) Insert the boot disk of the kit, and wait untill floppy led turns off
4) Insert the first empty amiga disk.
5) Go to the uncompressed folder and Run adf_transfer.exe. (on windows vista/7 you must "run as administrator")
6) Press "open file" button and select the adf image you want to transfer
7) Press "transfer" button.
8 )On the cli window that will appear on you screen of your pc, you watch the procedure of the transfer.For an adf image it will take about 1 minute and 50seconds!! (compare it with the at least 8minutes you need using a serial cable for the transfer using an amiga 500...)
9)After the transfer is completed,insert another empty amiga disk to your A500 drive
10)Goto step 6)
FOR TRANSFERING DISKS FROM AMIGA 500 TO ADF IMAGES ON YOUR PC:
-For 32bit version of the program ONLY: Install the special dosbox megabuild release, found in the uncompressed folder.USE THE DEAFULT INSTALL DIRECTORY (otherwise amiga->pc transfer will not work)
1) Connect amiga and pc with the cable (beware to plug the right end on each side,if you put it either way it will not work!)
2) Power on your amiga
3) Insert the boot disk of the kit, and wait untill floppy led turns off.Press and then .Wait untill floppy led turns off.
4) Insert the first amiga disk you want to transfer.
5) Go to the uncompressed folder and Run adf_transfer.exe.Select direction "AMIGA-->PC" (on windows vista/7 you must "run as administrator")
6) Press "transfer" button.
7) After the transfer is completed,you will have a newly created adf image in the folder of the adf_transfer programm.insert another amiga disk you want to transfer, to your A500 drive.
8 ) Goto step 6)
The above procedures can be used on any amiga model, (500,500+,600,1200,2000 etc) but i believe, it would prove especially usefull on older 500/500+ models which lacks the Ide connector and pcmcia card slot that newer models (600,1200) has, and so they can't provide any easy and cheap alternative to access adf images or transfer files from/to a PC.Also nowadays , any addon accelerator cards,addon memmories or scsi hd's for 500/500+ models are rather expensive and difficult to find!
Finally, the speed improvement against serial transfer is MUCH bigger on amiga 500/500+ :
ON AMIGA 500: ABOUT 430% THE SPEED OF THE FASTEST SERIAL TRANSFER (max 19200bps)
ON AMIGA 500+/600:ABOUT 220% THE SPEED OF THE FASTEST SERIAL TRANSFER (max 38400bps)
ON AMIGA 1200: ABOUT 150% THE SPEED OF THE FASTEST SERIAL TRANSFER (max~56000bps)
Using xcopy (perhaps the best disk utility on amiga) needs about 1minute and 40 seconds to copy an entire disk,which is roughly the same time you need to transfer the adf image from your pc to amiga disk, using an amiga 500!
As you can see, the hole step procedure is so plain and simple that,if you follow exactly the steps above, you can transfer many disks in a row, without even having a monitor connected to your amiga!
Now, if you are more of a "do it your self" guy, you can try and make the special parallel calble yourself:
You wil need 2X 25pin D male connectors and make the cable (using a multistrand cable with at least 10 inner cables) according to this:
=============================================
AMIGA SIDE | Pins | PC SIDE
----------------------------------------------
Data bit 0 | 2 <---> 2 | Data bit 0
Data bit 1 | 3 <---> 3 | Data bit 1
Data bit 2 | 4 <---> 4 | Data bit 2
Data bit 3 | 5 <---> 5 | Data bit 3
Data bit 4 | 6 <---> 6 | Data bit 4
Data bit 5 | 7 <---> 7 | Data bit 5
Data bit 6 | 8 <---> 8 | Data bit 6
Data bit 7 | 9 <---> 9 | Data bit 7
Busy | 11 <---> 11 | Busy
Paper Out| 12 <---> 1 | Strobe
Ground | 25 <---> 25 | Ground
==============================================
Also you must take the file "paradise" which is in the folder "TOAMIGA" (inside the "adf_transfer" folder that you previous download),transfer it to an amiga disk and execute it in wb's amiga shell.For more information read the included paradise.doc.
I hope this new method of fast,easy and cheap adf transfer would make many of you to get your old amiga's out of the closets and trunks (http://www.amibay.com/images/smilies/smile.gif), and enjoy once again your beloved programs and games you want!(http://www.amibay.com/images/smilies/wink.gif)(http://www.amibay.com/images/smilies/smile.gif)
*some usefull notes:
1)Always turn off amiga and pc before connecting parallel cable.
2) On the amiga-->pc transfers you may notice that sometimes pc and amiga can't start the connection.In that case press and on amiga and "transfer" button on pc program.
3) I have succesfully test the kit with the program using an amiga 500 and 2 pc's:a rather old athlon xp with on board parallel port running windows xp/7 32bit, and a modern quad core amd fx pc equiped with a parallel port on a pci card, running windows xp/32bit and windows 7/64bit.
4) All programs that are used in the transfer proccess (including my adf_transfer gui utility) are freeware.
5) Some "teaser": Check out the attached photo of the program, "on duty". Notice that having transfered ~25% of the adf file to disk,the ramaining time expected, is less than 85seconds!!
-
My friend, your method is surely cheap. When i decided, couple weeks ago, to bring my amiga 500 back to action (stored between 1997 and 2012), after the cleaning etc, i found myself with 2 major problems: floppy drive and my hundreds of floppies in a bad shape, ... my solution after searching a lot, was getting a wonderful piece of hardware to replace the floppy drive and leave my desktop free of those nice hundreds of floppies disks, i´m talking about the HXC floppy emulator. Yes, it´s kinda expensive, but you won´t regret after all is set up and ur enjoying hundreds of adf´s with great simplicity.
-
Well my friend,
IF i had a big collection of home micros and wanted to see many many games on my amiga (that would require 100's of disks), then i agree that a floppy emu (or even the more expensive a katweasel pci card) would be more apropriate and surely worth the money for it! ;-)
In my case (and maybe of others too) i initilally only wanted to play some 15-20 favorite games that would require some 10's of disks (btw, you can still find very cheap new HD 3.5" disks and with a 20sec format using xcopy will be "ready to use" ;-) ) . Now, i don't know about you, but personally, i wouldn't spend ANYTHING more than a 20euro bill (at most) to do that!
Using the kit, i made the disks in a couple of hours! After a few months,maybe i will need again to transfer some other 10-15 games,which will be very easy to do it using the same procedure!
And to tell you the truth,I REALLY enjoy the hole procedure, having my pc and amiga connnected like this, gave me a little of this sweet old school "do it your self" hobyist feeling, that surely characterize "amiga spirit" :) ;-)
-
I guess your right about that sweet feeling, still in these fast food days:), time is precious, and its becoming harder to get floppie disks... thats what motivated me. About the cost itself, at the time i just convinced myself that it would be a good investiment... and after a month i dont regret... the joy of seeing my kids playing games like twintris and others is priceless. LONG LIVE AMIGA with floppies or ADF´S.
-
Hi,
If you use Cloanto's Amiga Forever on your PC, you wouldn't have to go through all that trouble. Just boot up AF and play or run the program you want, and it is rather cheap. i believe about $39.95 or less for a digital download, and it can be cheaper if you owned AF before.
This also saves your Amiga 500 hardware, unless for some reason you like burning up old silicon.
smerf
-
Hi,
If you use Cloanto's Amiga Forever on your PC, you wouldn't have to go through all that trouble. Just boot up AF and play or run the program you want, and it is rather cheap. i believe about $39.95 or less for a digital download, and it can be cheaper if you owned AF before.
This also saves your Amiga 500 hardware, unless for some reason you like burning up old silicon.
smerf
Why should he shell out 40 bucks for Amiga Forever when he obviously owns both a 500 and a 500+ and is in his full right to just download WinUAE for free and emulate anything he wants with his own kickstart ROM images?
Is the superficial extra Windows GUI stuff included really worth that much to you? Maybe I don't really see the value because I have been using WinUAE since the late 1990's and know the configuration options by heart, but still, 40 bucks?
-
@Forcie,
Years ago I used to use winuae, but AF is so much easier to use. To me it is worth the $40 just so I can boot up any type of Amiga and game that I want. It even recognizes CD-32 programs and runs them (yes I have one of those with an sx-1 expansion). Since I am getting up in age, I and the wife have talked about retiring and going to the Philippines, we are also thinking of auctioning off a lot of my Amiga gear. Will need the money once i get there. Still just thoughts.
smerf
-
@ Ikonsgr
Good Work! There is always someone trying to resurrect their unexpanded 500 without the knowledge to do what you have outlined so well. Maybe this board would consider adding your contribution to a Wiki or some other knowledge base that is easily accessed.
Even when you expand an Amiga to the max, there is still something magical about a minimalist hardware system (especially if it is your first Amiga) that is tweaked to live well inside its limits. The OS really seems to shine. My favorite minimal system is an A500 with 4 or 8 Megs of fast ram and configured with half as a RAD: drive. Amazingly fast.
-
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and concerns about this project!
Allow me to express a couple of thoughts too:
Sure, using Winuae or AF on a modern PC or MAC, you can run and play all the (nowadays easily availiable on adf images) games and programs very easily. You can even emulate amiga models that you never owned!
I also know that many people who lived the amiga era, being in the "proper" age (teen to late 20's) back then, are begining to have "aging" symptoms :) : They seem to have lost this "do it yourself", hobbyst attitude i told you before, which i think is also required if you want to use the method i propose you here.Unfortunately, making a familly,the daily routine and obligations, finally make this attitude seems a little bit of a "luxury that i dont have anymore", for many of us.So we end up in just wanting to relive, as easy as possible, every now and then, some memmories and "amiga magic" through emulation on our modern monster PC's or even using a floppy emu instead of the "crappy,old,tedious" 3.5" disks....
All these are very nice and good and easy but....
IT'S NOT THE SAME!
Call me crazy,pervert or even mazochist :) but for me, the ONLY way to relive the ORIGINAL feeling and emotions we had some 20-25 years ago, is USING A REAL AMIGA WITH REAL 3.5" DISKS!
It's like a kind of "sacred ritual":
Power on your amiga, hear the constant kicking of the drive's head every couple of seconds, "demanding" for a disk. Then you take in your hand a disk, inserting it in the drive, hearing the characteristic locking sound, and then you just sit and "enjoy" the... reading "music" of the drive's humming and grumbling!:) Judging of my personal experience i can tell you that even the tedious disk exchange (if the game is more than a couple of disks) ,in some twisted way, can add to that "real amiga feeling"! (Of course i'm not talking about some 8,9,10,11 disk game, this would be really a NIGTHMARE if you dont have an hdd installed anyway! 2nd or 3rd floppy doesnt do any good either, because of the endless pauses and waiting times that constant disk reading required...)
Bottom line:
"Real man do it on silicon using 3.5" disks" :laugh1::rolleyes:
In the end,i truly believe that, what method someone would cosider as "best" for reliving "amiga magic" (emulation,floppy emu,cable transfer etc), has really nothing to do about money!
It's just a matter of still having this oldschool, "do it yourself", hobbist attitude or not, the essence of TRUE AMIGA SPIRIT! ;)
And i know that even the oldest and more tired of us ,who maybe have lost this attitude (i'm in my late 30's and unmarried so i supose that's why i'm still not feeling so "tired" :) ), will agree to that! ;)
-
If my PC had a parallel port, I'd give this a shot.
I could never get Amiga Explorer to connect.
-
@ ikonsgr
I love the drive sounds as well! Lotus and Lotus 2 make mighty fine "grunts" and "murmurs".
Ahhhh... sweet music to my ears.
:crazy:
-
If my PC had a parallel port, I'd give this a shot.
I could never get Amiga Explorer to connect.
Then why dont you try something like this?
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/170848137777?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649
Ebay has TONS of these cards, and they cost almost nothing!
This particular pci card, is the one i use on my modern pc (which of course doesnt have any parallel port onboard) and works perfect, both on windows xp and windows 7 64bit! ;)
It's really a unique experience to watch a 1987 16bit amiga 500 and a modern monster pc running windows 7 64bit ,siting side by side and exchanging data, like "brothers"! :)
-
In now offer TWO VERSIONS (http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/m.html?_nkw=adf+&_sacat=0&_odkw=adf+transfer+complete&_osacat=0&_armrs=1&_ssn=ikonsgr74) of the adf transfer kit:One with the cable and amiga boot disk and one which also includes a pci parallel card for all of you that you dont have a pc with parallel port onboard! (http://www.amibay.com/images/smilies/wink.gif)
-
Or how about this? http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/USB-to-PRINTER-DB25-Parallel-Port-Cable-Adapter-25-Pin-parallel-printers-/290635789061?pt=UK_Computing_USB_Cables&hash=item43ab3e3305 (http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/USB-to-PRINTER-DB25-Parallel-Port-Cable-Adapter-25-Pin-parallel-printers-/290635789061?pt=UK_Computing_USB_Cables&hash=item43ab3e3305)
-
In now offer TWO VERSIONS (http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/m.html?_nkw=adf+&_sacat=0&_odkw=adf+transfer+complete&_osacat=0&_armrs=1&_ssn=ikonsgr74) of the adf transfer kit:One with the cable and amiga boot disk and one which also includes a pci parallel card for all of you that you dont have a pc with parallel port onboard! (http://www.amibay.com/images/smilies/wink.gif)
Thanks! I've been struggling for a while with an idea how to get .adf's onto my Amiga 500, and was sort of resigned to having to upgrade the memory on it (enough to hold a complete .adf file), and then getting a serial cable, a USB->serial adapter for my PC, waiting for the slow serial transfer, etc. Your kit sure makes this easier though, heck, I couldn't make my own cable for the low price you're charging, LOL. ;-)
Just ordered it off your ebay site, looking forward to trying it out! :)
-
Or how about this? http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/USB-to-PRINTER-DB25-Parallel-Port-Cable-Adapter-25-Pin-parallel-printers-/290635789061?pt=UK_Computing_USB_Cables&hash=item43ab3e3305
Well i'm not sure this would work.The paradise utility which actually make the transfers,use the parallel port at a very "low" level (uses registers and parallel port directly and not through OS) ,so it needs a REAL parallel port.
PCI parallel cards have a real IEEE 1284 parallel port chip on board, so they create a real parallel port in your pc. This is a very different thing from having a usb adapter that "mimics" a parallel port through driver's emulation! The only way this adapter could work is if it has a real 1284 chip inside it ,like the pci card!
Anyway, any of you could give it a try and tell us if it works with usb to parallel adapter too (actually i might bought one too, and try it:) )!
For the moment, pci parallel cards are VERY cheap (check the price difference of the 2 versions of the my adf transfer kit and you'll know what i mean... :) ) and works 100% perfect on any windows OS! ;)
Thanks! I've been struggling for a while with an idea how to get .adf's onto my Amiga 500, and was sort of resigned to having to upgrade the memory on it (enough to hold a complete .adf file), and then getting a serial cable, a USB->serial adapter for my PC, waiting for the slow serial transfer, etc. Your kit sure makes this easier though, heck, I couldn't make my own cable for the low price you're charging, LOL. ;-)
Just ordered it off your ebay site, looking forward to trying it out! :)
I was EXACTLY at your place about 1 year ago!:laugh1:
I first made this kit for my personal need, and then i thought, "if it helped me so much, maybe there are many out there who might needed too"!
So, i made this presentation of the project primarily for EVERYONE to use it FREELY, by giving instructions on how to make the cable and share any extra needed software i made, for free. Of course i make and sell the kit too, for anyone that don't have time,skills etc to make it by himself. BUT, as you already mention, price is so low, that even if you can do it yourself, you might still want to buy it "ready made" from me! ;)
As there are many people nowadays, who sees the amiga community as only a "big wallet" for overpriced exploitation, fortunately there are still some, who still want to PRIMARILY offer and help the community.
And these are the ones that still have the "TRUE AMIGA SPIRIT" inside them! I want to think myself as a small contributor to this "spirit" too! :rolleyes:
Thanks for your support!
-
...and was sort of resigned to having to upgrade the memory on it (enough to hold a complete .adf file), and then getting a serial cable, a USB->serial adapter for my PC, waiting for the slow serial transfer, etc.
It is MUCH nicer to be faster.. I love this new option..
But you wouldn't have had to wait for more memory..
Using serial and transdisk or transwarp (and ADF Sender Terminal on the PC), you can can send ADFs to the Amiga straight to the floppy. Takes very little Amiga memory.
Works fine with a 512k Amiga (and should even work with a 256k A1000 also).
I did that for quite a while with my 500.
And the USB serial adapters are cheap and work great on my laptop.
I like serial. It's great..
But, it is slow.. So this solution is VERY nice to have as well!!
(Unfortunately, it's unlikely to work with USB parallel ports, so laptops are out).
I just use my Kryoflux now tho.. Although it is slightly (cough cough cough) more expensive.. ;-)
desiv
(OK, I think I need a few more cough's there.. It's much more expensive, but FUN...)
-
Well, you don't need any extra memory using this transfer method with parallel port ,either!
The amiga program only buffers 4 tracks( e.g. 44kb) at a time,add another 25kb for the program itself and maybe some 10-20kb for a couple of extra commands, so i believe it's very possible this method could even work on Amiga 1000 with only 256kb!
I agree the serial transfer is cheap and easy solution especially because usb2serial adapters work just fine with laptop , but ,man, having spent MANY,MANY hours to transfer ~100disks with serial cable in the past (just imagine... ~8minutes for EVERY disk!!!:eek: ) i really CANT describe you the feeling i had, the first time i transfer an adf image to a disk using a plain 512kb A500 in just 1min and 50seconds! :):hammer:
-
I've just updated the adf transfer program.
I got feedback from a couple of friends that use the kit on a pc with 2 parallel ports, so i've added a list box with all the available port addresses to choose. You can download the new version from the same (http://sdrv.ms/M6Xe6g) place.
-
Awesome, love software updates! :)
BTW, I still need to leave you positive feedback on Ebay! I got my kit a couple weeks ago and have used it successfully now to make about a dozen disks. My first problem was (as you suggested in your response to me on Ebay) that I needed to right-click on the application and run it as administrator. I assumed since my account is already admin that I didn't need to do that. Once done, however, it's working great!
Also I've discovered that many of my old 3.5" disks are bad, it seems like sometimes when the utility hits a bad disk the only way to get it running again is to restart the program on my PC and reboot the Amiga. I tried hitting various combinations of Esc and Enter, to no avail. Don't have a monitor hooked up to my Amiga when I'm doing this (have to drag it over next to my PC), so no idea if it's prompting me with any kind of error message on the screen. :-/
But, 20+ year old disks aside, it works great, thanks! :)
-
Side question, what is the possibility of making a longer cable? Don't recall offhand the cable length limitations of a parallel port. Do you think if I just threw a regular parallel port extension cable off newegg in-line with your adapter it would work, since the swapping of the wire pairs would already be taking place inside your custom cable?
My Amiga setup is about 20' from my PC, any closer and my PC would get jealous, LOL. :p
-
Awesome, love software updates! :)
BTW, I still need to leave you positive feedback on Ebay! I got my kit a couple weeks ago and have used it successfully now to make about a dozen disks. My first problem was (as you suggested in your response to me on Ebay) that I needed to right-click on the application and run it as administrator. I assumed since my account is already admin that I didn't need to do that. Once done, however, it's working great!
Also I've discovered that many of my old 3.5" disks are bad, it seems like sometimes when the utility hits a bad disk the only way to get it running again is to restart the program on my PC and reboot the Amiga. I tried hitting various combinations of Esc and Enter, to no avail. Don't have a monitor hooked up to my Amiga when I'm doing this (have to drag it over next to my PC), so no idea if it's prompting me with any kind of error message on the screen. :-/
But, 20+ year old disks aside, it works great, thanks! :)
I did let you feedback when you gave me yours, but for some reason ebay didn't inserted! Anyway i gave you feedback yesterday! Thanks again for your support!
Now, about the usage of the program, if you read the paradise manual you will understand why you have these small annoyances but i will try to explain it also here:
For transferring amiga disks to pc, i use a small batch file on boot disk ,which restarts the program (which of course is loaded to the ram drive) every time a disk is transferred, and if it stacks, you can press esc+enter to restart it again.So, for amiga->pc transfers, boot disk needs initially about 25-30 seconds,but after that, no rebooting is needed what ever happens!
For opposite transfers ( from pc to amiga ) i choose a different approach:i use the parameter "-stay" on amiga side of the program, in order to make multiple disk transfers in a row without even pushing a button on amiga! The "drawback" for this,is that if an error occurs (usually a bad disk as you noted) you must restart amiga with the boot disk to continue the transfers. But if you noticed, booting time for pc->amiga transfers only takes about 10seconds instead of 25-30! ;-)
Now,why i make the program function like this, you may ask? Because after many hours of usage, i noticed that program hangs or stacks (for any reason) rather often on amiga->pc transfers, so it would be rather annoying having to reboot and wait for 10 seconds every 2-3 disks!
On the other side, pc->amiga transfers is much more stable (provide that disks you are using are not bad of course) and after all, rebooting only takes ~10seconds! Of course i could make the program to behave the same like on amiga->pc transfers but then, you should wait for boot disk to load the first time for 25-30secs instead of 10 (did i told you i'm inpatient? :-) )!
Anyway, if you know a little about amiga's batch files and read the paradise manual you can modify boot disk to make it behave as you like! Don't forget also, that paradise is very powerful, it gives you the ability to transfer stand alone files or even hole directories instead of adf images only! For this you must use amiga shell and windows cli of course.
But i believe that 99% of people want to transfer adf images to amiga disks and try them on the "real thing", right? ;)
That's why i make the hole procedure so simple,fast and automated that not even a monitor connected to your amiga is needed! (btw ,this is how i use the kit too no amiga monitor connected! :-) ).
-
Side question, what is the possibility of making a longer cable? Don't recall offhand the cable length limitations of a parallel port. Do you think if I just threw a regular parallel port extension cable off newegg in-line with your adapter it would work, since the swapping of the wire pairs would already be taking place inside your custom cable?
My Amiga setup is about 20' from my PC, any closer and my PC would get jealous, LOL. :p
There are 2 reasons for making the cable about 1.5-1,6meters long:
1) This way you insure that no problem with data transfer will occur.
2) Weight of package. If i make cable even a little longer, postage would cost ~1.5euro more.
I have made a ~2,5 meter that seems to work right, but the longer the cable the more often you might get transfer problems.
To "solve" this problem, you can use either a thicker cable (to minimize cable impedances) or even individual screening cable (if you can find one with at least 10 strands of course). Of course these cables are rather expensive and also much more time and effort would required to make the cable.
Anyway, you can try to use a parallel cable extension,but i cant guarantee you it would work!:rolleyes:
-
Another minor update:
I received some messages from people trying to use the 64bit version of the program, complaining about an error message of "can't find dosbox-svn-daum.conf file".
This will mostly happen if the dosbox configuration file is "Read only", which usually happens when the hole adf transfer folder is "read only".
So i update the 64bit version of the program, to automatically "uncheck" the read only attribute of dosbox.conf, and eliminate this nuisance! ;)
Also with the new versions, you can try the program on windows 8 too!
-
I've bought one of these kits and first of all, I must say that it arrived in the UK from Greece only 2.5 days after I ordered it one night, beating orders of other items from UK sellers made on the same night! I've transferred a load of games and applications onto Amiga floppy disks, including various software I've never used before. It's been great!
Unfortunately, this kit can be a bit temperamental. I've already had and solved one problem, which was actually caused by some ADF files available online being too large, although this happened after I accidentally unplugged the transfer cable from the Amiga while it was switched off, but the PC was still turned on. These files were 891K, instead of 880K. They included Assassins games compilations from the website Back 2 the Roots. After this, the Amiga Paradise software kept complaining about the wrong file length and aborting the file transfers. I found out that this also affected other files of 880K, which had their lengths increased to 891K. The solution was to rename a file called temp.adf which was 891K and in the ADF transfer directory. I then deleted it.
A new development is that I moved my Amiga from a small table onto a computer desk which I've just got. After doing this, I tried another file transfer and suddenly got the message "Time out - No answer. Retrying...". I noticed that the transfer cable had fallen out of the back of the Amiga, probably while it was turned on! I turned off the Amiga and PC, reconnected the cable to the Amiga, turned both computers on and tried again. Unfortunately, since then, no matter what I've tried, including re installation of ADF transfer, different ADF images, trying to transfer from Amiga to PC instead of from PC to Amiga, running from the Windows command prompt, all I ever get is the message "Time out - No answer. Retrying..."! I tried to run the 64bit version of the program, but this just confirmed that my Windows XP Professional installation is a 32 bit version, although my PC is 64bit. I think my next step will be to uninstall the installation of ADF transfer I was using, before I re installed it again, then wipe the original downloaded zip archive and use a fresh version of the download. This is because it never appears on the Start menu and I have to navigate to the directory Downloads, then to the program's own directory. In spite of this, it was working before, but stopped all of a sudden just after the transfer cable fell out of the back of the Amiga. There are no screws to hold these plugs in place, otherwise I don't think this would have happened. I really hope this is just a software problem and that I haven't damaged my Amiga parallel port! If all of this fails to work, then I'll finally install the PCI parallel card I bought with this software. Unfortunately, I don't know enough to check the transfer cable pins and I haven't got anything else I can plug into my Amiga parallel port to check it.
I hope to be able to report that it's all working again in the near future. Meanwhile, at least I can play some RPGs I never got round to in the past and study some raytracing using AmigaBASIC and compiled programs which I transferred using this kit.
-
I don't recall off-hand if the CIA chips affect parallel port operation, but you might try swapping those and see if anything changes?
-
I don't recall off-hand if the CIA chips affect parallel port operation, but you might try swapping those and see if anything changes?
I remember that they do, because I investigated years ago, then thought that my printer wasn't working any more, because of some problem I had with a NewTek video digitiser, but after replacing the chip, it didn't get my printer working again. Only replacing the printer cable solved the problem, although that cable worked on someone else's printer. I don't know if swapping the CIA chips round is a good idea, though.
Anyway, after doing nearly everything with the software which I listed in my last post, all that's left is to plug in the PCI parallel port, but I'm not looking forward to unscrewing the PC case, which looks like a difficult one!
-
The side of the PC case just needed to be prised or slided open while pressing a button. I've fitted the PCI card, then found I immediately got the message "ERROR Resource Conflict PCI Slot 04 BUS 0B Device 05 Function 00" while booting up. I pressed F2 to try and set it up. I had no real idea what to do, except look for PCI, so definitely not Plug and Play. I changed the PCI IRQ to almost every value available from the menu, but the error message above still came up, no matter value I chose, apart from IRQ14, which resulted in the system freezing during boot. I was then lucky to get back into the BIOS setup after several attempts, and finally changed the setting back to Auto, then saved and exited. In all attempts I was setting the first item on the list, as I had no instructions on what to do. After all this, I didn't try setting it to IRQ15, the only value left on the list.
Of course, as you may have guessed, the end result of this was the message "Time out - No answer. Retrying...", no matter what I tried to do. I hope the seller of this kit or someone on here can tell me how to solve this.
-
Unless the cable got damaged when it was pulled out, I'd suggest you test your parallel port on the Amiga. Have an old printer lying around or anything?
If you're using the parallel port card that came with the kit you'll need the drivers from the website for it. IRQ settings sound like maybe your motherboard is too old to support it though?
-
Hi,
If you use Cloanto's Amiga Forever on your PC, you wouldn't have to go through all that trouble. Just boot up AF and play or run the program you want, and it is rather cheap. i believe about $39.95 or less for a digital download, and it can be cheaper if you owned AF before.
This also saves your Amiga 500 hardware, unless for some reason you like burning up old silicon.
smerf
Talk about missing the whole point of OP original intention lol
-
AmigaBruno, i'm sorry to hear that you have these problems, but since you already made a lot of successful transfers, i don't think that the problems you encounter can possibly caused by the cable or software.
After what you told us, i've update the ebay listing putting the warning note i already had (about having both pc and amiga turned off before connecting cable) to a much more visible place,and adding never to unplug cable when amiga is turned on, just to be "on safe side"!
Now about the holding screws,maybe you are right that i should put them too, but i assume there was no need to put these, as in most cases, someone will have the cable connected only when he make transfers, so screwing/unscrewing on both ends,every time he needs to make some transfers, (screwing only on amiga side,doesn't prevent the possibility of unplugging on pc side, so both connectors need to be screwed), is a rather tedious task that no one would do!
Moreover, the 25pin Dsub connector fits very tight on both amigas and pc parallel ports i've tested, so i never thought this would happen to anyone.
I really hope that parallel port is not damaged, although i believe that damage will possibly be made in the "opposite" case of yours, e.g. connecting the parallel cable while BOTH pc and amiga are turned on (although i personally, unplug/plug cable many times when only amiga is off and everything seems to works fine!).
p.s. Since you bought the kit with the pci parallel card, try to use it too, and see if it works. Drivers can be found here (https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=e94d9e3d661012e7#cid=E94D9E3D661012E7&id=E94D9E3D661012E7!175) . The specific pci card has been tested with my pc and works perfect! ;)
-
i used to struggle to get files from pc to amiga ..now i can either burn a cd ..or even quicker put them on a usb flashdrive ..walk to my bedroom an plug in my amiga ...i love usb ..
-
That's very nice, but what was the cost to be able to do this? :rolleyes:
Judging from the machines you have in your signature, i guess the... "bill" was pretty large, right? ;)
-
Unless the cable got damaged when it was pulled out, I'd suggest you test your parallel port on the Amiga. Have an old printer lying around or anything?
If you're using the parallel port card that came with the kit you'll need the drivers from the website for it. IRQ settings sound like maybe your motherboard is too old to support it though?
All that has happened which may have caused all this trouble AFAIK is that the cable fell out of the Amiga parallel port while both computers were switched on. I have read the documentation about troubleshooting. It was working before this happened. Of course, I downloaded the drivers from the seller's site which also contains 32 and 64 bit versions of the ADF transfer software. AFAIK I have installed these drivers through the Windows found new hardware wizard. I told it to include the relevant directory in the search for drivers. After this, Windows has reported and is still reporting that it's found two multifunction devices, which seem to be this same PCI card, because I haven't fitted anything else except a new mouse, which is the same make and model as the old mouse, but I plugged it into a different USB port. I don't know how old this PC is, because I bought it from eBay last year. It's called a Fujutsu Siemens Esprimo and has a 64bit AMD CPU. Windows XP Professional was pre installed and I haven't set up any additional accounts such as Administrator, but the default account seems to have Administrator privileges and when I used the Command Prompt (MS-DOS) to try and get access to more settings under Paradise it said I was the Administrator.
Unfortunately, I have nothing else that I can plug into the Amiga parallel port. I think that if I don't get this sorted out myself, then I can get someone at Amiga North Thames group to diagnose the fault on April 14. I've seen one of them making modifications to Amiga motherboards and he had a look at my clock battery, which wasn't leaking.
So basically, whether or not this has caused the problem, these plugs should be supplied with screws to hold them in, but I don't know exactly what type of screws.
I've only just noticed that the seller has replied, so I'll reply to him ASAP.
-
AmigaBruno, i'm sorry to hear that you have these problems, but since you already made a lot of successful transfers, i don't think that the problems you encounter can possibly caused by the cable or software.
After what you told us, i've update the ebay listing putting the warning note i already had (about having both pc and amiga turned off before connecting cable) to a much more visible place,and adding never to unplug cable when amiga is turned on, just to be "on safe side"!
Now about the holding screws,maybe you are right that i should put them too, but i assume there was no need to put these, as in most cases, someone will have the cable connected only when he make transfers, so screwing/unscrewing on both ends,every time he needs to make some transfers, (screwing only on amiga side,doesn't prevent the possibility of unplugging on pc side, so both connectors need to be screwed), is a rather tedious task that no one would do!
Moreover, the 25pin Dsub connector fits very tight on both amigas and pc parallel ports i've tested, so i never thought this would happen to anyone.
I really hope that parallel port is not damaged, although i believe that damage will possibly be made in the "opposite" case of yours, e.g. connecting the parallel cable while BOTH pc and amiga are turned on (although i personally, unplug/plug cable many times when only amiga is off and everything seems to works fine!).
p.s. Since you bought the kit with the pci parallel card, try to use it too, and see if it works. Drivers can be found here (https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=e94d9e3d661012e7#cid=E94D9E3D661012E7&id=E94D9E3D661012E7!175) . The specific pci card has been tested with my pc and works perfect! ;)
The Amiga parallel plug is very loose on my Amiga A500 Plus, which is why it fell out.
As I said above, I have plugged in the PCI parallel card, but can't get it to work.
Further details are that my BIOS is a Phoenix cME FirstBIOS Desktop Pro, Copyright 1985-2006 Phoenix and Copyright 2003-2006 Fujitsu Siemens. It's causing a conflict with the original parallel port and needs its IRQ or something else to be set, or the original parallel port to be disabled. This is at the BIOS level before any operating system has loaded. Of course, this is because it's a PC. An Amiga would just auto configure. I even tried changing the port address in the ADF transfer software to AD00 like in your graphic, but it didn't make any difference. I don't know anything else I can do except plug the PCI card into the only other free slot, but I doubt that would work either. How can I stop the PCI card from conflicting?
Of course, I've been doing all the transfers and attempts at more transfers using Windows. I have also got Ubuntu Linux, but this software won't run under that system, not even using WINE.
-
Changing the pci slot is a good practice to solve an irq conflict on old motherboards.
Also, old bios usually offer 2 or 3 alternative settings for the on board parallel port. If i remember correctly something like 378h or 278h. The default usually is 378h, try to change this with bios and see if this resolves the conflict.
-
Changing the pci slot is a good practice to solve an irq conflict on old motherboards.
Also, old bios usually offer 2 or 3 alternative settings for the on board parallel port. If i remember correctly something like 378h or 278h. The default usually is 378h, try to change this with bios and see if this resolves the conflict.
I've now tried changing the BIOS settings to 278h, but that didn't work. I also tried changing all other BIOS settings I could think of which may be connected with it. The conflict and the same old error message still remain.
All that's left to try now is plugging the PCI card into the only other empty PCI slot. I'll let you know how I get on.
-
I've finally got round to unplugging the PCI card and plugging it into the only other spare slot.
The result of this is that the conflict has been resolved and Windoze has installed the drivers for the PCI parallel card as well as the multifunction device, which is PCI LPT!!!!
All that's left is to connect the Amiga and PC parallel ports together. Unfortunately, someone has been helping me to tidy up my flat and it looks like a small tornado has hit it! When I manage to connect the parallel ports together, then I'll tell you whether or not they work.
-
Finally, some good news! The ADF transfer kit is working again!!
The bad news is I don't know why it's working again. :crazy:
After installing the new PCI parallel port, I found I couldn't get it to work with this transfer kit.
What eventually worked was plugging the cable into the PC motherboard parallel port, setting the port address to $0378 (a new address of $4000 had appeared on the menu), booting the Amiga from the Paradise floppy disk in df1: with the disk write protected and having the disk to download onto in df0: . I have only ever transferred onto disks in df0: because that's the default and it worked. I don't know how to change this to df1: or dh0: . I've recently bought a hard drive from eBay, but I haven't got it yet.
I only had one floppy disk left to copy stuff onto, but this gave an error message something like "Can't write. Please replace volume Workbench 1.3 into any drive". This error only comes up with certain software. After getting this error tonight with the ZXAM Spectrum emulator, I managed to transfer Arkanoid onto the same floppy disk, with no error messages at all.
So, to sum up, although this kit is very useful, it's also very temperamental, and I think we should have a topic on here where everyone gives details of anything that stops it from working and how they managed to get it working again.
-
Finally, some good news! The ADF transfer kit is working again!!
The bad news is I don't know why it's working again. :crazy:
After installing the new PCI parallel port, I found I couldn't get it to work with this transfer kit.
What eventually worked was plugging the cable into the PC motherboard parallel port, setting the port address to $0378 (a new address of $4000 had appeared on the menu), booting the Amiga from the Paradise floppy disk in df1: with the disk write protected and having the disk to download onto in df0: . I have only ever transferred onto disks in df0: because that's the default and it worked. I don't know how to change this to df1: or dh0: . I've recently bought a hard drive from eBay, but I haven't got it yet. :confused:
I only had one floppy disk left to copy stuff onto, but this gave an error message something like "Can't write. Please replace volume Workbench 1.3 into any drive". This error only comes up with certain software. After getting this error tonight with the ZXAM Spectrum emulator, I managed to transfer Arkanoid onto the same floppy disk, with no error messages at all. :laugh1:
So, to sum up, although this kit is very useful, it's also very temperamental, and I think we should have a topic on here where everyone gives details of anything that stops it from working and how they managed to get it working again. :confused:
-
I'm using one of these.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Amiga-500-1000-2000-3000-Floppy-Simulator-w-MPDOS-Pro-/321096932559?_trksid=p2047675.l2557&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEWNX%3AIT&nma=true&si=YTYHs8bhtECmFxprwITbDOEF3mc%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc
The neat part is that its transparent to the Amiga.
(http://i.ebayimg.com/t/Amiga-500-1000-2000-3000-Floppy-Simulator-w-MPDOS-Pro-/00/s/Mzg4WDQ3Ng==/z/~mUAAMXQAx9RUlyg/$T2eC16J,!w0E9szN(W+hBRUlyg2Ib!~~60_12.JPG)
-
I'm using one of these.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Amiga-500-1000-2000-3000-Floppy-Simulator-w-MPDOS-Pro-/321096932559?_trksid=p2047675.l2557&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEWNX%3AIT&nma=true&si=YTYHs8bhtECmFxprwITbDOEF3mc%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc
The neat part is that its transparent to the Amiga.
(http://i.ebayimg.com/t/Amiga-500-1000-2000-3000-Floppy-Simulator-w-MPDOS-Pro-/00/s/Mzg4WDQ3Ng==/z/~mUAAMXQAx9RUlyg/$T2eC16J,!w0E9szN(W+hBRUlyg2Ib!~~60_12.JPG)
So, this cable connects to a PC and allows Amiga users to use a PC as a server or peripheral. The bad news is that it plugs into your internal floppy drive interface. The same seller also has another cable, which can also be used with an Atari 8 bit computer, but that connects to a joystick port.
-
Amazingly enough, my Amiga A500 GVP HD8+ SCSI hard drive unit with 42Mb Quantum drive fitted has just arrived only 3 days after I won the eBay auction! The item details said it has Workbench 2.0 already installed.
I'd really like to be able to transfer some ADF files directly onto this drive, but my supplied Amiga autoboot Paradise software disk is set up to copy these files onto df0: . It just boots up, then says it's establishing a connection, but never says that it has connected. Resetting by pressing ESC, then Return doesn't give me any prompt which enables me to change the drive to any other drive. Can someone tell me the easiest way to do it? I'll also need to read up on and install WHDload.
-
Amazingly enough, my Amiga A500 GVP HD8+ SCSI hard drive unit with 42Mb Quantum drive fitted has just arrived only 3 days after I won the eBay auction! The item details said it has Workbench 2.0 already installed.
I'd really like to be able to transfer some ADF files directly onto this drive, but my supplied Amiga autoboot Paradise software disk is set up to copy these files onto df0: . It just boots up, then says it's establishing a connection, but never says that it has connected. Resetting by pressing ESC, then Return doesn't give me any prompt which enables me to change the drive to any other drive. Can someone tell me the easiest way to do it? I'll also need to read up on and install WHDload.
You're about to move beyond the ADF transfer kit at this point. The easiest thing for you to do now is to pick up a cheap external CD drive that plugs into the SCSI port on the GVP unit, then when you need to transfer files just burn them onto CD with your PC. ;)
-
You're about to move beyond the ADF transfer kit at this point. The easiest thing for you to do now is to pick up a cheap external CD drive that plugs into the SCSI port on the GVP unit, then when you need to transfer files just burn them onto CD with your PC. ;)
It took me about 4 months to get some kind of hard drive device like this because I haven't got all that much money at the moment and I just couldn't afford it. I bought this one a day after being beaten in a similar auction right at the end. I was determined not to be beaten again and even had to raise my bid at the end, while in the middle of watching some sci fi. At the moment I'm worried about not being able to have a social life this weekend or next, as well as paying for my broadband, cable TV and landline phone. I still need to check the figures for my budget, though. I often used to use Personal Finance Manager on my old Amigas and it may be a good idea to start using it again.
After plugging in and using my new old hard drive unit, I was shocked to find that only 10Mb of the 42Mb drive space remained! I immediately started worrying about if I could even fit the Lattice C compiler, which I think has 6 ADF files, onto the remaining space. I've recently been reading the 2 Abacus/Data Becker books about C programming and they seem to make sense to me! It looks like I should replace this hard drive or fit a second one via SCSI, but I'm not sure if it would be an external drive with its own case, an internal one fitted externally, or an internal drive which I can somehow fit internally into this unit. After this shock, I was pleasantly surprised looking at some of the RAM usage figures from one of the menus in Personal Paint, as well as looking at the figures on the menu bar of my Workbench screen. After some calculations to check everything, it seems I now have 3Mb RAM instead of the previous 1Mb RAM. This is although the eBay listing said it have no RAM fitted. The Deluxe Paint animation "Cry", now runs, but there's still a problem with the GFA BASIC "Pogo Sprites" program, which I ran once or in one session several times, while loading and running all the examples, but ever since then it's refused to run, saying the program is too long, or there's not enough RAM. It seems to me that the GFA menus have somehow changed since my first session, but I'm not sure.
To sum up, I'm not even going to bid on any external CD SCSI drives for at least a week from now, and when I do, I don't know how long it will take for me to succeed and actually get one. This is why I'd like to know how to change the Paradise default setting of saving to df0: to dh0: or if that's even possible for all the software I may try to do that with. I think I may have to change this at the PC end, but I'm not sure. I don't want to go for about another 2 weeks with my ADF transfer kit not working again! Another problem is that a shop on my doorstep has now stopped selling floppy disks. I've found 10 left over from several years ago, which I may be able to use after I check they're blank or what's on them. I hope I can find a shop that sells them, instead of having to wait for more to arrive from eBay.
-
After all I've been through not being able to do transfers for about 2 weeks, last night I got the same old error message about not being connected and retrying!!!! This means I'm currently not able to do any more ADF transfers. :destroy:
First of all, I asked myself what had changed since the Arkanoid ADF transfer. The answer was that I fitted a GVP hard drive. Of course, I disabled it so I could boot from the Paradise floppy disk, but that wasn't enough. I then disconnected the hard drive, but that made no difference. Neither did changing the port address or using the new PCI parallel port.
My theory is that any little change can somehow reset the parallel ports connection, turning it off. This happens at the PC side, where the console messages appear, but on the Amiga side the floppy disk just says "Establishing connection..." I think I now need to explore absolutely everything to do with the Paradise software to overcome this. I hope it doesn't take me another 2 weeks. I'd appreciate any suggestions.
-
Good news! I've got the ADF transfer kit working again.
I reread the documentation and it seems that it's very important in what order you do things. I ran the Paradise software on the Amiga first and inserted a blank Amiga floppy disk before running the ADF transfer software on the PC.
I used my original parallel port with the address of 0x378. I was able to transfer the set of 4 ADF files which make up the Aztec C v5 compiler. I managed to install these onto my hard drive as well. Unfortunately, the compiler keeps generating various error messages, such as multiple input files and can't find various include files which are where the configuration file aztec.sh says they are. This means I haven't managed to produce an executable C program yet, only object files.
-
So everything concludes to the "classic": RTFM! (Read the @#$@ manual!) :lol:
Anyway, as i note on the presentations of adf transfer kit (and ebay listings too), paradise utility can do MUCH more than transferring adf images. I decided to use it for adf image transfer only, as this is what most amiga users want, but most important,by doing this, i manage to automate the hole procedure to be as easy and simple as possible!
As paradise it's a very old cli utility on both amiga and pc it has some "oddities" and also ,in some cases, even the creator of paradise doesn't now how the util behaves with specific hardware configs.For example i recently found out that if you have a second floppy drive it's better to disable it because sometimes paradise seems to "hung up"! Also if i'm not mistaken somewhere in the paradise manual noted that author of the program doesn't know if it works with external drive at all!
Reading AmigaBruno's experiences, i sum up the following conclusions:
1) Eventually, it turns out that unplugging the cable while amiga is turned on, doesn't cause any problem to amiga's parallel port (nevertheless ,all cables i make from early april, have the secure screws for anyone want to use them)
2) Paradise can indeed make transfers on external drives or hard disks too
3) For manual using paradise (e.g. for transferring files/directories or transfer from Amiga HD) it;s VERY important to follow exactly the order of procedures.
AmigaBruno you can correct me if i'm wrong on the above conclusions or you can add more if you want.
Also, i think it would be a great idea to present all your findings in a "Troubleshooting/faq guide for adf transfer and paradise" in a new thread or adding them in the first post of this thread.
I also want to thank you for sharing your experiences, as i'm sure they will be very helpful to Amiga community! ;)
-
Ikonsgr....
I have purchased your kit, ad followed your guide EXACTLY to the letter, but I get this:
** Error: unable to do drive I/O.
** Error: can't write
** Download failed
Any ideas? I have been VERY careful to follow your instructions carefully...
I am getting increasingly frustrated with what was called the fastest and easiest way to transfer files from PC to Amiga....
:(
-
If you followed the instructions as you said, then the error messages you get, 99.9% are caused by bad floppy disks!
Anyway, floppy disks as we all now are not a very reliable mean of storage.
Try to amiga format (with verify) a disk (so to be 100% sure that disk is ok) and use it to transfer an image.
In order to make a transfer the disk must be unformatted, amiga formatted, or an amiga disk that already have data on it and you wish to overwrite it.
Btw, if you, or anyone have any problems ,it's better to contact through ebay messages or email me directly(ikonsgr@hotmail.com) to get a much more fast reply, as
i don't get to forums too often.
-
Greetings all you fantastic Amiga people!
This is my first post and in a way an introduction.
I just dug up my old Amiga500 from my parents basement with about 500 pirated floppy discs with various games and programs. I adopted everything from my uncle when I was a child, and played countless of hours on it. Its been burried for 18 years.
But a few days ago, I brought it home with me, cleaned it inside and outside, even opened the psu and cleaned that one too. Man, it was dusty. The main reason I dug it up is that I love making electronic music, hoping to find some music programs like synths or trackers, and offcourse, try the old games. As a child I only cared about the games, not music programs, but today I'm the opposite, and guess what... I found OctaMed in the pile of discs! YEAH!
So, I hooked it up with the 520 RF-out to my girlfriends LCD tv, got a really bad picture, but MAN I was exited! I could allmost not believe it still worked! Then, as i started going through the tons of discs, almost no one works... Ahh... the pain... my heart just slowly lost its power the more discs I tried and failed... Some games started, like Ski Or Die, but it got stuck in the cool intro music with the hand planting snowboarder image. The same with First Samurai. Same with Chuck Rock, it didn't recognise the fire-button-pushing after swapping to disc two. The only game functioning was North and South. Funny game, but I was sad. The tunnel was dark.
But then, I search a bit on the internet, reading a bit on this HxC thing, allmost like a light at the end of the tunnel.
But then I read about IKONSGR!!! WOHO!!!
I THINK SEE THE LIGHT NOW!!!
Because I have to agree with ikonsgr, I still want to use floppies.
So, ikonsgr, can I now go ahead and buy this from you on ebay, download lots and lots of music programs in the shape of adf files, and then use your brilliant way of transfering them from my laptop to the Amiga500 and then write them to floppy discs from the Amiga500, pack down my computer and start making music with the standalone Amiga500!?!
Do I understand it correctly? It makes my Amiga write disks with the help of my laptop?
Note 1:
I'm not an Amiga expert. I only played the games on it as a child. If I remember it correctly, my uncle showed me only ONE key combination:
Ctrl+A(miga)+A(miga), for me to push when exiting a disc in a safe way. I never learned how to write, copy or even erase discs.
Note 2:
I don't think my laptop have a parallel port. It only have some kind of 15pin-port on the side... But what's this PCI PARALLEL PORT CARD you offer? Can I use my burt up Acer Aspire 5738Z to do the job?
My God! Now I am exited again!!!
PS. Thanks for the Amiga scart cable I just bought from you on ebay. Recieved it today. The picture is very clear now.
-
I don't think my laptop have a parallel port. It only have some kind of 15pin-port on the side... But what's this PCI PARALLEL PORT CARD you offer? Can I use my burt up Acer Aspire 5738Z to do the job?
I have this kit. It works well, however you will need a parallel port to use it. The PCI card is exactly what it sounds like - a PCI card with a parallel port on it. It needs to go in a normal-size PC, not a laptop. There are USB-to-parallel-port adapters that would work on your laptop, but as I understand it are not compatible with this kit. So first off, you'll need a PC with a parallel port (or a normal system that you can install a PCI card into), and some good floppy disks. I cannot emphasize that enough, you'll need some good floppies (your old ones with all the errors probably won't work). Beyond that, you'd be all set. Click on his ebay link to purchase the product.
-
@ mikkel zen
I wonder if your floppy drive is on the very edge of functioning within spec (able to spin at the correct RPM, clean heads, clean microswitches). If you clean and lube your drive, you may find many of those floppies work great. Just a thought.
-
Thanks for the info and tips guys.
Damn! I have to get myself a new computer to do the job, that sucks.
Suddenly the HxC method is cheaper?
...If i can't find a stationary PC in my parents basement that is...
Yes, tenacious, the floppie drive is a bit unstable also. I have to try a few times, in and out, then suddenly it reads the disc, but still, I have a lot of bad discs. But yeah, I will definently take a look at some vids on maintenence on the amiga floppie drive.
-
Wouldn't hurt to start with this:
http://www.amazon.com/Cleaning-Kit-3-5-Floppy-Drive/dp/B000V6Y1W6/
Also somebody posted a tip on the forum a couple weeks ago about using a small dab of WD-40 to repair some issues with old disks. Haven't tried it myself but might try searching for their post to get the details.
-
I'm using one of these.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Amiga-500-1000-2000-3000-Floppy-Simulator-w-MPDOS-Pro-/321096932559?_trksid=p2047675.l2557&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEWNX%3AIT&nma=true&si=YTYHs8bhtECmFxprwITbDOEF3mc%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc
The neat part is that its transparent to the Amiga.
(http://i.ebayimg.com/t/Amiga-500-1000-2000-3000-Floppy-Simulator-w-MPDOS-Pro-/00/s/Mzg4WDQ3Ng==/z/~mUAAMXQAx9RUlyg/$T2eC16J,!w0E9szN(W+hBRUlyg2Ib!~~60_12.JPG)
UHHH!!
OK are you using the digitizer, or the pc projector, or the refrigerator, gee I am so confused.
Iggy is MorphOS really better than an Amiga.
How you doing haven't been around for a while, just wanted to give you a little BS.
smerf
-
@ mikkel_zen (http://www.amiga.org/forums/member.php?u=11449)
Well i think there is not much do add, unfortunately,in order to make transfers you need a Real parallel port, cheap usb to parallel adapters don't work. So either you need an old laptop that has a parallel port on board or find any desktop pc! :rolleyes:
Now, i was thinking, although file/directory transfer from pc to amiga can be also done, it is not an automated process like with adf images, you will need to use paradise "old fashion" way, e.g.giving commands on amiga shell and cli!
So, i was thinking of making a second alternative boot disk (i will put it inside "useful adf images" sub folder of adf transfer program folder) and a small addition to adf transfer program interface in order to enable an easy and fast way to transfer files and directories instead of adf images!
How about that? :)
-
Thanks for the info and tips guys.
Damn! I have to get myself a new computer to do the job, that sucks.
You could get an old Pentium 233MHz Laptop with Win95 from 1990s, they should be almost free and they take up little space.
-
You could get an old Pentium 233MHz Laptop with Win95 from 1990s, they should be almost free and they take up little space.
You can use paradise utility directly under old msdos/win95, so you don't need the adf transfer program for that, anyway!
BUT, most probable,the program will not run under win 95,so you must use it through cli as paradise is a classic multi attribute command line utility! ;)
-
So many helpful people here full of quality experience.
I like this forum. You guys are awesome!
Guess what I just dug up from my parents basement? A big, maybe ten years old, fully operational, stationary PC with this connector on the back (guess its the right type of connector: its a pink 25 pin she). If its the wrong connector, I will probably buy the right one of you ikonsgr. If you still have them...
Hopefully Im moving in the right direction. In a few days, when my paycheck arrives, I will order the proper tools from you ikonsgr. Just one question: What kind of floppy discs do I buy? Does the A500 require a size limit on floppies? I believe the old ones I have here is maximum 1MB.
I will study this thread further, before I ask any more lazy questions...
Thanks guys.
-
The A500 uses standard double density disks. High density "sometimes" work, but with poor reliability.
-
It's difficult to find double density 3.5" disks any more, at least cheap ones.
Personally i use only pc formatted High density disks as i can find new ones for 3-4euros/box of 10. You just need to give them a quick amiga format before using them.
I also know a couple of friends that have literally transfer 100's of adf images to HD disks with no problems.
Of course as Oldsmobile_Mike said, there might be an "issue" of reliability using HD disks on DD drive, but floppy disks in general, are not reliable mean of storage anyway! :rolleyes:
And in the end, if an HD disk would be unreadable after 10-20 readings you can just rewrite it using the kit in a couple of minutes! ;)
-
Sounds good.
The investment here is the file transfer equipment and of course the bunch of amiga music software adf files I've just downloaded.
I'm actually counting on the floppies to get worn out in time. Obviously they dont endure the element of time anyway.
Cant wait to get it all set up, working, and start making music with the amiga. :banana:
-
Hi!
I have been able to transfer a few games, but suddenly I cannot seem to do it anymore. Some looks okei, but then it all stops, or the game doesnt work.
Is there differences in adf files? should every adf file work? am i doing something wrong?
thanks
-
If you followed the instructions as you said, then the error messages you get, 99.9% are caused by bad floppy disks!
Anyway, floppy disks as we all now are not a very reliable mean of storage.
Try to amiga format (with verify) a disk (so to be 100% sure that disk is ok) and use it to transfer an image.
In order to make a transfer the disk must be unformatted, amiga formatted, or an amiga disk that already have data on it and you wish to overwrite it.
Btw, if you, or anyone have any problems ,it's better to contact through ebay messages or email me directly(ikonsgr@hotmail.com) to get a much more fast reply, as
i don't get to forums too often.
... and what could cause this error message in the last 00.1 % ? :mickeymouse:
-
... and what could cause this error message in the last 00.1 % ? :mickeymouse:
Bad floppy disks!
-
Bad floppy disks!
I have formatted and then checked each disk for error. Losts of them was bad and have been thrown out. But the remaining few comes out clean without errors. Still I get the error message as mentioned... Its never the ADF-files? Is there a way I can test something to find out whats up?
-
As mentioned before, I managed to transfer a few adf images. Suddenly mu luck ran out, and i didnt manage to transfer sucsessfully. but i managed to transfer something. But then the adf transfer program on my pc wouldnt automatically detect the parallel port adress anymore. after counltess restarts etc, it wount connect anymore.
any thoughts?
-
If, as you say, adf transfer program can't automatically detect the parallel port adress, then most probable there is aproblem with your pc's parallel port.
First, check your device manager to see if parallel port there works ok (no exclamation marks). Also, if you are using a parallel port pci card be sure it's plugged firmly into slot.
Hope these help.
-
Great doco on using the paradise parallel setup. Handy for disk bound A500 users.
-
I just "discover" something that might be a cheap solution for all you "laptop lovers" that don't have a desktop pc, (http://eab.abime.net/images/smilies/biggrin.gif) and want to use the adf transfer kit:
These pcmcia to parallel port cards (http://dsa.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_odkw=pcmcia+parallel&_sop=15&_osacat=0&_from=R40&_trksid=p2045573.m570.l1313.TR0.TRC0&_nkw=pcmcia+parallel&_sacat=0)
They claim that this offers a TRUE parallel port and they are rather cheap too! (http://eab.abime.net/images/smilies/wink.gif)
Does anyone know if this kind of adapter really offers a real bidirectional parallel port (you will probably know this, if you tried to connect any device other than common printers)
-
[UPDATE]
I just upload a new improved version of the boot disk.
I use the reorg utility to optimize the boot disk, so now you will only need ~7 sec to boot for PC->AMIGA transfers (previous was ~10 seconds) , and less than 20 sec (previous was ~25 sec) for AMIGA->PC transfers! :)
You can find the new boot disk here (https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=e94d9e3d661012e7#cid=E94D9E3D661012E7&id=E94D9E3D661012E7!175) (i also put it inside the 32bit and 64bit versions of the adf transfer program folders, so anyone who downloads them will get the new boot disk inside "usefull adf images" sub folder)
-
[UPDATE]
I just upload a new alternative version of the boot disk, named "Boot_df1.adf". As you can probably figure out by the name, you can use this boot disk, to make all transfers using the second external drive, instead of the internal!
By doing so, you can leave permenantly the boot disk on internal drive, and change disks on external drive, so whenever a problem occurs you just reset amiga without needing to insert the boot disk again! ;)
Also,i had some minor bugs fixed in both 32bit and 64bit versions of adf transfer program:
- Choosing a read only adf image to transfer, doesn't cause "sticking" on copying this same image. So no need to manually delete the "temp.adf" file anymore (the workaround used so far)
- No need to restart application to change i/o address of parallel port. This might also fix some issues regarding the configuration file of dosbox being "read only"
As always, you can find the new boot disk and versions of the program here (https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=e94d9e3d661012e7#cid=E94D9E3D661012E7&id=E94D9E3D661012E7%21175).