Getting MaxUAE (or another emulator) Up & Running

[AHunter3]

Nearly thirty years ago I read about UAE and became interested in emulating an Amiga, not because I once owned or used one but because I never have, and it's always been "that other computer" that I could have been exposed to in the 1980s instead of the Macintosh.  So it was curiosity, hobby-level interest.  I obtained the kickstart ROM from a friend who had an actual Amiga, downloaded MacUAE 0.4.0, and obtained the Workbench 3.1 installation disk.  Just one disk, I think?  Anyway, I never succeeded in getting the full OS to install and then UAE to boot from the virtual hard disk.  The install disk itself is bootable but not full-featured.

At some point along the way I downloaded some applications from aminet and they're currently installed in what MacUAE 0.4.0 and 0.6.0 identified as a "Shared Amiga/Mac Folder":  I have the AmigaDOS Manual, ArtPRO, FreePaint, MED, MOD-2-MIDI, SplatterPaint, Masc, and something called XModule.  The only thing that ever actually launched, as far as I could tell, was MED.  Put it aside and shifted my attention elsewhere.

Now I'm on a reasonably modern Intel Mac running 10.6.8, futzing around with MaxUAE, attempted to futz around with something called AIAB (Amiga in a Box) but couldn't get the necessary download, and with FS-UAE, but I apparently need a Complete Idiot's Guide to using any of the above.

MaxUAE:  doesn't have any menu item via which I would select a folder and tell it to treat it as an additional volume, nor any menu item to create or make use of a hard drive file.  How the heck do you create space in which to install the OS and applications and whatnot?

FS-UAE:  seems to be waiting for me to designate an Amiga model.  Yeesh, I don't remember what model my ROM file came from!  So I try them all, one at a time, but for each model selected it says "No kickstart found for this model".  In my ~/Documents/FS-UAE folder (which it created) there is a Kickstarts folder, within which it deposited a copy of my kick.rom file which I aimed it at when it told me to import any kickstart roms I had available.  


Maybe I'm too stoopid for this, but I'd appreciate someone giving me Instructions For the Compleat Idiot, click for click and keystroke for keystroke, to the point that I have a bootable Amiga environment akin to what I would have had if I had an actual Amiga computer, booting from the full OS and not just the installation diskette.  Anyone wiling to walk me through this?

[AHunter3]

I see that one way of configuring UAE environments is by directly editing a uaerc file.

The one that's in the same folder as MaxUAE itself isn't very informative and also doesn't resemble other uaerc files that I've managed to download for comparison, in hopes of finding a line on which to specify a path to a MacOS-environment folder that is to be treated as if it were a hard drive:


-r kick.rom
-K rom.key
-S 2:m:8:22050:22050:0
-J M0
-f 1
-O 800:600:d
-H 0
-F 1
-c 4
-C 3a
-w 4
-A 2
-m MAC::
-l us

[carvedeye]

Do you not have a Windows pc/laptop you can use as winuae is a much better Amiga emulator?

[AHunter3]

Nope.  I have several virtual Windows boxes, and could if necessary run WinUAE in a Windows virtual machine, but I'd rather run it directly under MacOS.

[ferrellsl]

Nope.  I have several virtual Windows boxes, and could if necessary run WinUAE in a Windows virtual machine, but I'd rather run it directly under MacOS.

He's right.  Install WineBottler on your Mac and then use WinUAE on your Mac.

[AHunter3]

Will WinUAE run within a Parallels environment (Windows 7, Windows XP)?

[bloodline]

Running FS-UAE shouldn't be this difficult. The amiga model doesn't really matter, just select A1200 if that doesn't work then try A500. When the machine boots if you see a white screen with a hand holding a blue disk, you have an older kickstart rom image (1.x - it will display the exact Rev number on screen). From there you can press F12 (you might need to switch exposé off in the Mac OSX settings) and pop an ADF image into the virtual floppy and go!

[AHunter3]

Running FS-UAE shouldn't be this difficult. The amiga model doesn't really matter, just select A1200 if that doesn't work then try A500. When the machine boots if you see a white screen with a hand holding a blue disk, you have an older kickstart rom image (1.x - it will display the exact Rev number on screen). From there you can press F12 (you might need to switch exposé off in the Mac OSX settings) and pop an ADF image into the virtual floppy and go!

Under MaxUAE, the rom I've got shows the purple screen and the amimation of the disk being pushed in, no hand involved.  It says 3.1 ROM, 40.063, copyright © 1985-1993 Commodore-Amiga, Inc.

In FS-UAE, for the A500 and the A1200 (along with all the others, I tried them all) it says "no kickstart found for this model", despite me having "imported" my kick.rom, apparently successfully since a copy of it now exists @  ~/Documents/FS-UAE/Kickstarts/

[WeiXing3D]

I'm using FS-UAE for Mac in my MacBook Air (pentium 7) without any problems.

[AHunter3]

As I said, I may be too stupid to run an Amiga emulator.

Downloaded and installed WinUAE into a Windows 7 environment (Parallels .  Also downloaded UAEInstall.adf file.  Copied my kick.rom file from the Mac environment into my Documents folder.  Specified it manually after all tries to simply designate that directory and let WinUAE scan for a rom file failed.  Specified a folder to be used as a hard disk with bootable checked "yes".  Clicked "Start".  I got the purple screen wit the Amiga double-checkmarks and the animation of disk going in.  Hmm, no overhead menus?!?  No place in the GUI to say "I'm sticking yonder floppy into DF0?  Alt-Tab, hit the Windows

• to kill the app.  Relaunch.  This time specified a floppy disk (the abovementioned UAEInstall.adf file).  

It complains about the absence of either this required ROM or that alternative required ROM; I click OK and find that it lost all my settings for ROM file and for hard disk folder/volume; I re-enter those, click

Start again.  This time I boot to AmigaDOS, but not to anything akin to workbench.  MMkay, NOW what?!@?

well I have the same .adf file that I was (failing to successfully) using to install under the Mac version.  Copy that adf file instead.


Launch WinUAE again.  Click past the warning about no ROM files.  Re-enter all my settings again (path to ROM file, path to folder representing virtual hard drive, path to floppy this time specifying the old WB installer).

Start again.  Yay, workbench screen!  I'm now about as far as I ever got when running MacUAE / MaxUAE.

I double-click the Install3.1 diskette icon, double-click the folder/(the icon looks like a little file cabinet, do y'all call them folders or directories or what?) named "install", then double-click the "English" installer icon.  After a glacial epoch or so, I get a window "Install - Press 'Esc' to Abort".  I confirm that I want to install Workbench 3.1.  

Welcome to the Workbench 3.1 installation utility.  Please indicate how the installation should proceed (based upon your knwoledge of the Amiga).  [ ] Novice User - All Actions Automatic; [ ] Intermediate User - Limited Manual Contro; [ ] Expert User - Must Confirm All Actions

Let's go with Novice user, shall we?

Confirm English.  Select printers (?.... let's go with PostScript, I stand a chance of printing to a file that I can interpret outside the Amiga environment...  Proceed...

Working on installation... Preparing icons...

And then it does exactly what it did on the Mac some 30 years ago, and on subsequent attempts:




This is the only bloody disk I've got!  So I guess I should ideally have additional disks.  The name of this installation disk appears to be "Install3.1" and it is asking for "Amiga Workbench" ?  Where do I get that?  (Is it available as a free download?  I hope so, not so much because I need my warez for free but because I assume I can't run down to the local Commodore-Amiga store and buy it...)

But even pretending for a moment that I had additional disk images sitting around, I see no WinUAE menus that would let me select a command such as "Insert Disk into DF0", like there is on the Mac versions.


And why won't this emulator retain my settings?  And why can't it (or FS-UAE by the way) scan a folder and recognize it as a proper ROM file, by the way?  Clearly it IS one!


Is there a means by which I can pay a person who is versed in this stuff to give me keystroke-for-keystroke, mouse-click for mouse-click assistance and/or remote into my environment with TeamViewer or equiv and show me how this is done?

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

As I said, I may be too stupid to run an Amiga emulator.

I've been using real Amiga's for 25 years and I can't wrap my head around emulators sometimes, either, so it isn't just you. IMHO real hardware makes more sense. But for your first tip, you need a total of six disks (or disk images) to install 3.1. That's Install, Workbench, Locale, Storage, Fonts, and Extras. We can't give you direct links to download these disk images from because "technically" they're still copyrighted, and the copyright police wave a heavy hand on this site sometimes. But a quick Google search for "Amiga Workbench disk images" or the like, should set you right up. From there that will get you a working 3.1, anyway, but you might have better luck downloading a pre-configured hard drive image. I hear AmiKit and the like are good, although again, I don't use emulators so am probably not the best source on a recommendation for those.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AmiKit

[Duce]

Amikit might be more use to you, and it's dead simple to use.

http://www.amikit.amiga.sk/

[AHunter3]

One thing I'd particularly like to know is how to "insert" a floppy disk after WinUAE is up and running.  Where are the controls for doing that?

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

You have to press a key or key combination, then it comes up with a window where you select which ADF disk image you want to load into what drive.  I think F12?  But I'm probably way off base.  Just start hitting every key on the keyboard, or someone else will come along and give you the right answer soon.  

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Try this:

http://guide.abime.net/gguides/winuaeb.htm