WinUAE, DICE & Floppies

[Reg]

Hi,
I'm new here and just returning to Amigas after a 15 (or so) year hiatus.
I still have a couple of A2000 boxes, but they're bulky and I'm messing with Amiga Forever (Cloanto, WinUAE) on an HP 64 bit laptop to keep everything in one compact place.

ANYWAY, I have the dice 3.15 binary distribution as well as the source release but..... well, I guess I've just forgotten a lot.

The DICE scripts seem to create 5 floppies and ask for them to be inserted via the Installer.
What I am having trouble with right now is figuring out if the (simulated) floppy drives in WinUAE can format blank (simulated) disks and write to them.
There is something in the scripts about first creating the disk images in the RAM disk... and I guess I would like to take a shortcut and somehow "mount" these disk images instead of having to "insert" the images of the floppies.

Bahh, Humbug, but I think if someone has already done this and can give me a clue it will probably spark the right memory cells and kickstart my long distant past.

ANY help would be much appreciated.

tnx,

Reg

[ElPolloDiabl]

First, select Create blank floppy. (From Winuae config screen)

Next, boot Workbench and from Workbench format the (adf) floppy.

[Thomas]

I wonder why you want to create floppy disks when you already have a harddrive configured.

Just unpack the archive to a place on the HDD and add some lines to s:user-startup as described in one of the readme files. No need to run scripts or the like.

Bye,
Thomas

[Reg]

Thanks,
For some odd reason I had not noticed the create blank floppy button.

Well, I guess I'm just using the install script that is there because....
just because....
Just because it is an install script that is there and has a better chance of working than my finger-boning the keyboard, having that fail, not knowing where I mis-typed, etc.
(-:

thanks, I think I'm pretty much set for now.

[x303]

Did you know you could download dice 3.16 from aminet ? Just click the link: http://aminet.net/dev/c/dice-3.16.lha

x303

[Reg]

Did you know you could download dice 3.16 from aminet ? Just click the link: http://aminet.net/dev/c/dice-3.16.lha

x303

Yes, thanks I have it.
Have you installed and managed to run it ?
I thought I had it all up and working about a month ago, but suspect that some evil Winddoze update has upset the Cloanto emulator.
I have checked my s:user-startup for all the assigns and path adds, setenv, etc.
Any hints/clues ?

RIGHT NOW (this morning) I cant get VOpts to work, it complains that there is no file at DCC:Config/VOpts.config    (and sure enough, there isn't).

I might start over, complete delete and re-install, thanks for your help.

[x303]

Here are my assigns:

assign >nil: DCC: dh7:dcc
assign >nil: DLIB: DCC:dlib
assign >nil: DINCLUDE: DCC:include
path >nil: DCC:abin ADD
assign >nil: LIBS: DCC:libs ADD

I can run vopt, but I can't save any projects. Looks (and feels) that dice is a bit outdated here.
Maybe you wanna try gcc or vbcc. Both are free.
Or else try to get a copy of SAS/C which has a similar options gui as dice has.

x303

[Reg]

Here are my assigns:

assign >nil: DCC: dh7:dcc
assign >nil: DLIB: DCC:dlib
assign >nil: DINCLUDE: DCC:include
path >nil: DCC:abin ADD
assign >nil: LIBS: DCC:libs ADD

I can run vopt, but I can't save any projects. Looks (and feels) that dice is a bit outdated here.
Maybe you wanna try gcc or vbcc. Both are free.
Or else try to get a copy of SAS/C which has a similar options gui as dice has.

x303

Ummm, {red in the face emoticon}
I had made the hurry-up/screw-it-up mistake of using a windows side archive program to unpack an archive directly into the amiga side.

Unfortunately it mostly, almost kinda/sorta worked.
It would have been better if it had just thrown up an obscure error message and quit.

Anyway, the other little thing was that I needed to copy DCC:editors/dme/s/.edrc to S:.edrc to get dme's editor window menu working.
===============================================

I have SAS/C on Amiga floppies, but will leave it alone for a little while.
I was reasonably comfortable with Dice at one point and would like to complete my catchup.
Having a legit license for SAS/C 5.something might get me a cheap upgrade when I'm ready (-:

There is some old talk of Amiga SAS/C being or becoming free, there is also talk of SAS running out of copies of a 6.58 (or so) version.
Anyone know the current status of that ?

[Reg]

Thanks again for the SAS/C suggestion.
I happened across the original set of six Amiga format floppies for SAS/C 5 the other day and have been reading through the various posts on how to read and convert 880K floppies to .adf files - which I suppose I would then write to 1.44 meg floppies to read back through the emulator.

Anyway, I hauled down a 2 inch binder that said SAS on the spine and had almost the same thickness of dust on it.  
Opened up, WOW ! SAS/C 6.50 disk set with a 6.51 patch disk.
Then aNOTHER 2 inch binder that is the reference manual.
In all honesty I can NOT remember ever buying this and it seems it was almost $400 at the time.... I would have REMEBERED that sort of outlay even from 15 years ago (-:

So, should I try to resurect a physical amiga to read these flops, or go with the DISK2FDI program on an old dos box ?
Right now I'm not sure that the Amiga can write out 1.44 meg PC flops anyway, so it might have to be the PC box that has 2 floppy drives on the same cable - I have an old tower one of those.

[x303]

and have been reading through the various posts on how to read and convert 880K floppies to .adf files - which I suppose I would then write to 1.44 meg floppies to read back through the emulator.

If you haven't got any other way of getting the adf files to your pc (serial cables, cf card), fd's are the only option.

So, should I try to resurect a physical amiga to read these flops, or go with the DISK2FDI program on an old dos box ?
Right now I'm not sure that the Amiga can write out 1.44 meg PC flops anyway, so it might have to be the PC box that has 2 floppy drives on the same cable - I have an old tower one of those.

If you wanna use it on your pc to run sas/c, use winuae to emulate you amiga.
And no, amiga's don't write out 1.44 mb fd's by default. Use something like (my) kcs dual hd drive for that
If you don't have any other way of getting your fd's on the pc, try splitting your adf files with something like joinsplitter, put them on 720kb disks (you need mfm.device and fat95 for that) and join them back on the pc side.

x303

[Reg]

Update;
I have been futzing around with AmigaExplorer from Cloanto, trying to get that to work through serial port and a null modem.
Unfortunately THIS laptop only has USB connectors and a built in modem that "gets in the way" by having COM 3 assigned to it.

I got a generic USB to serial adapter and got all cabled up with the null modem, but that wasn't working at all until I un-installed the built in modem and (after a few re-boots) managed to get the USB to serial adapter on COM3.
The AExplorer setup now "works" in that it recognizes the (physical) Amiga and the physical Amiga does receive data on SER: - - but it is flakey as all heck, sometimes I get 1800 or so bytes on the initial setup transfer, other times it is less than 400.
I have tried all the old tricks of moving the serial cable away from 110 volt power cables and away from the sheet metal cabinet of the Amiga, draping the (very short) USB cable carefully straight out from the laptop, etc., so I don't think it is a cable noise problem.  I have also tried transfer speeds down to 300 baud.  The 10ft Serial cable is the one I used to hook to a modem for dial-up, so I am confident that it works.....
Wow, memories,,, the number of Fish disks that passed through that cable.

Anyway, right now I think I'm going to revert to dial up with the old Zoom 28.8 modem, FTP .adf files of the SAS/C kit to my web site (private area) and FTP them back down with the Laptop.  
Once I get an adf file maker running on the Amiga, I am able to write 720K floppies with this laptop and I can read them with CrossDos on the physical Amiga, so getting stuff from Aminet isn't TOO bad.

I should add; KUDOS to Cloanto and their retro platforms help desk, their technician Mike has been leaning over backwards on this for me.

[Thomas]

The 10ft Serial cable is the one I used to hook to a modem for dial-up, so I am confident that it works.....

Are you sure this is the right kind of cable ? To connect two computers directly you need a so-called "nullmodem" cable. That's similar to what is called "crossover" for Ethernet cables, i.e. the send lines of one end are connected to the receive lines of the other end and vice versa. A normal serial cable which is connected 1:1 does not work. Usually to connect a modem to a computer such a 1:1 cable is used.

http://www.amigaforever.com/kb/13-105

Bye,
Thomas

[nishtek]

We have null modem cables that have been tested with Amiga computers.  drop a pm.

[Reg]

Are you sure this is the right kind of cable ? To connect two computers directly you need a so-called "nullmodem" cable. That's similar to what is called "crossover" for Ethernet cables, i.e. the send lines of one end are connected to the receive lines of the other end and vice versa. A normal serial cable which is connected 1:1 does not work. Usually to connect a modem to a computer such a 1:1 cable is used.

http://www.amigaforever.com/kb/13-105

Bye,
Thomas

Thanks,
I may have used a poor choice of words.
That 10ft serial cable is just that, it was previously used to connect my Amiga to a Zoom modem.

In THIS configuration the path is;
Amiga serial port <-> 10ft cable <-> Null Modem <-> 25 to 9 pin adapter <-> USB to Serial Port Adapter <-> short USB Cable <-> PC USB Port.

My bi-direction connection icon being <->

This is not a long path, the Null Modem is the 3 inch or so plug/socket mounted back to back.
The pin assignments on the back of the package (original Radio Shack period part) agree with the null modem cross-over requirements as described by Cloanto.

One OTHER thing I really don't understand is how a 4 pin USB adapter gets out to become a full 9 pin serial bus.
I hope/(assume) that there is some muxing/de-muxing in that little gizmo to make the pin count come out right (-:

Maybe it doesn't, perhaps "modern" serial bus devices are "3 wire" ?

[Reg]

We have null modem cables that have been tested with Amiga computers.  drop a pm.

Thanks, but I think I am OK on that part.
It is getting into the PC on a 4 wire USB that has me at a standstill right now.