Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Software Issues and Discussion => Topic started by: TheMaDMaN on November 21, 2004, 01:25:02 AM
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Ok, I realise I might be opening a can of worms here, but what software should I get for my soon-to-be-running-again A4000/040?
System Specs:
CPU: 68040 @ 25MHz (Stock A3640 CPU board)
RAM: 2Mb Chip, 16Mb Fast
HDD: 1Gb IDE
CD-ROM: unknown speed IDE (not yet functional due to not being supported by Workbench 3.0 default install)
OS: Workbench 3.0
Kickstart: 3.0
Expansions: A2088XT Bridgeboard
There is the obvious stuff, like MUI, but what else should I get? I do want to add the machine to the network and access the internet on it (if only to download straight to the A4K) that is assuming this is possible, and if so what software will I need. If it is not possible to do it this way, I could always add an external modem and setup a dial-up internet connection, again, what software would I need?
Thanks in advance for answering my perhaps stupid questions.
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Alright mate,
I would actually suggest you get yourself some 3.1 ROMS for your 4000 and a later version of the OS.
After 3.0 comes 3.1, 3.5 and 3.9
All the best from rainy England :-)
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I really worry about your new avatar Cyb. Very.... Doomy. :)
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A near stock '040 isn't going to blow your socks off, and to get on the internet you're really looking at getting a modem and the netconnect 2 or 3 software bundle.
There's other ways, but they involve spending cash, and it ends up being a money pit. You can use a serial cable to move stuff to / from PCs, due to the file sizes involved it's not a horribly long winded thing to do.
So what do you want to get out of your Amiga? Games, internet, programming?
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You could softkick to 3.1 with Maprom. I installed OS3.9 on my A4000 040 that way. That would be the easiest way to get the most essential!
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Holley wrote:
A near stock '040 isn't going to blow your socks off, and to get on the internet you're really looking at getting a modem and the netconnect 2 or 3 software bundle.
There's other ways, but they involve spending cash, and it ends up being a money pit. You can use a serial cable to move stuff to / from PCs, due to the file sizes involved it's not a horribly long winded thing to do.
So what do you want to get out of your Amiga? Games, internet, programming?
Games, Internet, Graphics & animation (editing and creation), Emulation, and the occasional bit of programming...
Oh yeah, I forgot I've got an IDE 100Mb ZIP drive and a few ZIP disks, which I could use for data transfer, if I can get the ZIP drive to work with the A4K, or I could use the DVD burner in the PC to burn CDs, or I could install the 1Gb IDE in the PC and transfer data via WinUAE, so I doubt transferring data to and from the A4K will be a problem...
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@TheMaDMaN
As already mentioned, it depends on what you want to do with your Miggy. I only have my A3000 set up at the moment and all that does is play games so I don't really have all that much stuff installed on it. One piece of software that I couldn't live without is DOpus so add that to your list :-)
Edit...Doh, must have been posting at the same time :oops:
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Oh yeah, I forgot I've got an IDE 100Mb ZIP drive and a few ZIP disks, which I could use for data transfer, if I can get the ZIP drive to work with the A4K, or I could use the DVD burner in the PC to burn CDs, or I could install the 1Gb IDE in the PC and transfer data via WinUAE, so I doubt transferring data to and from the A4K will be a problem...
I use a similar set up for grabbing stuff of the net, I simply have my ZIP disks set up as HDD's and mount them in WinUAE accodingly, works a treat. Only problem is that I don't have SCSI on my A1200, so transferring files to that is a real pain in the a$$, guess thats why it just sits in the cupboard now.
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For graphics I use ArtEffect4, web browsing AWeb 3.5 beta through Genesis (comes in OS 3.9), games with WHDLoad (bung old floppy games on the harddisk), MakeCD to record CDs and Amiga Writer of writing. Thats about all I do really, on an A3000 with A3640, 16Mb of fast mem, Cybervision graphics card, XSurf network card.
I've built a fake Amiga using a PC that boots straight into UAE, and to be honest I use it more now.
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holley, how is your fake Amiga working? How does it boot directly? I was thinking of doing that.
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thats a neat idea
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TheMaDMaN : don´t make it too difficult for yourself. Go and buy the latest CDrom 56x or so, so that speed problems won´t be caused by that thing. Of course a CDrom is not standard supported by OS 3.0, unless you use the software IdeFix. Should be possible to get this somewhere. When using a CDrom you can put as much as you want on a rewritable CD using your pc and put it into your Amiga. That´s the way I am now trying to get my A1200 tower back to life. Want internet at acceptable speed ??? Get a brandnew Xsurf II ethernet card and you will even get an additional IDE controller. Note that the standard A4000 3,5" controller also allows CDburning up to 8x but with Burn Proof technology this won´t be a problem :lol:
If you happen to have enough money, then get yourself a scandoubler that allows to you see the Amiga on a regular PC monitor. Trust me, games look better on a 19" than on a 14" :lol:
For more questions, just ask. There are loads of high intelligent people on this forum just killing eachother to help you first :lol:
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Holley wrote:
For graphics I use ArtEffect4, web browsing AWeb 3.5 beta through Genesis (comes in OS 3.9), games with WHDLoad (bung old floppy games on the harddisk), MakeCD to record CDs and Amiga Writer of writing. Thats about all I do really, on an A3000 with A3640, 16Mb of fast mem, Cybervision graphics card, XSurf network card.
I've built a fake Amiga using a PC that boots straight into UAE, and to be honest I use it more now.
That 'fake Amiga' does sounds interesting, is it based on UAE running on a version of Linux, or on WinUAE running on top of some version of Windows?
Anyway, back to the original thread question, perhaps I wasn't specific enough. Which hacks, utilities, datatypes, programs, etc do you find yourself using all the time on your Amiga, and would be things you would download if you had to start from a fresh Workbench install?
I've got going DirOpus 4, DPaint 5, PPaint 7, Photogenics, SnoopDOS, Iconian, Shapeshifter, MagicWB, NewIcons, MUI, ClassAct, IDEFix97 & WHDLoad, are there any other programs I should get? And what hacks, datatypes, etc would be worth getting?
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I've got going DirOpus 4, DPaint 5, PPaint 7, Photogenics, SnoopDOS, Iconian, Shapeshifter, MagicWB, NewIcons, MUI, ClassAct, IDEFix97 & WHDLoad, are there any other programs I should get? And what hacks, datatypes, etc would be worth getting?
Add also JST and XPK, I also find OctaMed 4 to be quite fun.
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OK, here are some utilities I'd say you MUST get - or at least give a try. These are the best I've found after much experimentation:
ABCdir - totally awesome (surprisingly underrated) file manager
Visual Prefs - for customizing total look of Workbench
LoadCMAP - to lock the WB palette so it doesn't stupidly change
DrivePrefs - stop that annoying drive click
ModePro - to promote & modify screens
SimpleFind 3 - the best file finder
DiskSalv 4 - the good disk salvage / undelete tool (hard to find)
Scout - the ultimate system monitor (get ver. 37.249)
Hex - old but good binary editor
ScreenShell - full screen shell (make a double height autoscroll screen with ModePro!)
MuchMore - super smooth scrolling text viewer
Fjpeg - fast jpeg viewer
Visage - nice, fast multi-format image viewer
v41sound.datatype - very nice sound datatype
NISClock - best title clock
PowerSnap - clip text anywhere (almost)
Voodoo-X & xadmaster - extract almost any archive
Zoom - nifty little magnifyer that works on any screen
... and there are lots more like TitleShadow, WindowToFront, Iconify, MFR, VersionWB, DoIcon, RunFromWB, Clip, ASLtoRT.
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Quote:
"If you happen to have enough money, then get yourself a scandoubler that allows to you see the Amiga on a regular PC monitor. Trust me, games look better on a 19" than on a 14""
I think you're wrong there! I bought a scandoubler for my Amiga 500 thinking it would look better and I was horribly disappointed. Everything ends up looking chunky and dull. Scan-lines on those old 1084 monitors actually improve the look of the low-res graphics in non-interlaced modes. Also, because they are less crisp than modern monitors, colours blend together for a smoother look. There is a nice glow to pixels on the 1084 that modern monitors don't have.
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mr_a500 wrote:
OK, here are some utilities I'd say you MUST get - or at least give a try. These are the best I've found after much experimentation:
ABCdir - totally awesome (surprisingly underrated) file manager
Visual Prefs - for customizing total look of Workbench
LoadCMAP - to lock the WB palette so it doesn't stupidly change
DrivePrefs - stop that annoying drive click
ModePro - to promote & modify screens
SimpleFind 3 - the best file finder
DiskSalv 4 - the good disk salvage / undelete tool (hard to find)
Scout - the ultimate system monitor (get ver. 37.249)
Hex - old but good binary editor
ScreenShell - full screen shell (make a double height autoscroll screen with ModePro!)
MuchMore - super smooth scrolling text viewer
Fjpeg - fast jpeg viewer
Visage - nice, fast multi-format image viewer
v41sound.datatype - very nice sound datatype
NISClock - best title clock
PowerSnap - clip text anywhere (almost)
Voodoo-X & xadmaster - extract almost any archive
Zoom - nifty little magnifyer that works on any screen
... and there are lots more like TitleShadow, WindowToFront, Iconify, MFR, VersionWB, DoIcon, RunFromWB, Clip, ASLtoRT.
Perfect, exactly the sort of thing I ws hoping for, thanks!
I'm guessing I can get all of these from Aminet?
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TheMaDMaN wrote:
I've got going DirOpus 4, DPaint 5, PPaint 7, Photogenics, SnoopDOS, Iconian, Shapeshifter, MagicWB, NewIcons, MUI, ClassAct, IDEFix97 & WHDLoad, are there any other programs I should get? And what hacks, datatypes, etc would be worth getting?
If you do go down the 3.1ROM route then OS3.9 will replace NewIcons with the system friendlier GlowIcons set (which I rather like). Also shipped with OS3.9 is an unrestricted version of Genesis, which will allow you to connect to a modem for dialup, an MP3 player and an AVI player too.
Overall, I'm very pleased with OS3.9 and have little to criticise there.
Other programs you might want to try are:
Visual Prefs - allows you to tailor the WB window frames / gadgets and colours. You can get some stunning results with Visual Prefs, which doesn't seem to consume much in the way of CPU time.
Magic Menu - patches the drop down menus so that you can change their colour, appearence and add shading etc. With a graphics card you can even make them semi-transparent.
Birdie - a controversial one this, your mileage may vary. Birdie works by patching the window borders so that you can overlay a pattern of your choice - in jpeg, gif or iff format. It works happily with Visual Prefs and again the results are nothing short of stunning, however it does cause some problems with opening / closing screens IMHO.
PNGIcons (I think that's what it's called) - If you've a GFX card installed this program allows use of true colour icons. There are some examples on this site and used in conjunction with Visual Prefs, Magic Menu and Birdie you'll have a desktop which will be the envy of everyone.
There are also some 68040 specific libraries which will increase the performance significantly.
Oh, and you might find Photofolio useful. It's a thumbnail creator utility which is very versatile and system friendly too.
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mr_a500 wrote:
Quote:
I think you're wrong there! I bought a scandoubler for my Amiga 500 thinking it would look better and I was horribly disappointed. Everything ends up looking chunky and dull. Scan-lines on those old 1084 monitors actually improve the look of the low-res graphics in non-interlaced modes. Also, because they are less crisp than modern monitors, colours blend together for a smoother look. There is a nice glow to pixels on the 1084 that modern monitors don't have.
I couldn't have said it better myself. A dedicated old-school Amiga games system benefits from a C=1084 monitor or equivalent. :-)
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TheMaDMaN wrote:
I do want to add the machine to the network and access the internet on it (if only to download straight to the A4K) that is assuming this is possible, and if so what software will I need.
OS3.9 will allow you to get online, but for networking you'll either need to install a Zorro network card (hard to source and expensive) or you could take the plunge and add a PCI bridgeboard to your system.
A Mediator bridgeboard is cost effective and the A4K version has Zorro slots too IIRC. You'll have the advantage of being able to fit a PCI graphics card (either an S3 ViRGE or Voodoo), plus a Soundblaster 128 and a 10/100 ethernet card. The all up cost of sourcing a mediator plus all the PCI cards is likely to be less expensive than trying to find all the zorro equivalents.
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Nobody seems to have mentioned ImageFX yet... damned powerful image manipulation software - just takes a while to learn the interface.
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Chunder wrote:
Nobody seems to have mentioned ImageFX yet... damned powerful image manipulation software - just takes a while to learn the interface.
Oh yeah, I had totally forgot about that. I've got an old version of that, that was released on a coverdisk years ago, I used to play with it when I first got my A1200HD, but obviously with only 2Mb of RAM (and all of it being chip) back then, I wasn't able to do all that much with it.
Hopefully I've still got those coverdisks, and they still work, if so, I'll probably install it, play around with it and most likely upgrade to the latest version...
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Quote:
"Nobody seems to have mentioned ImageFX yet... damned powerful image manipulation software - just takes a while to learn the interface."
Yes, ImageFX is great! If we're talking about applications now, here are some good ones (freeware/shareware):
MiamiDX - best TCP-IP/dialer
YAM - best email
OSS & Protracker 4 - the best mod trackers (don't get OSS 2)
SongPlayer - nice multi-format sample player with playlists
DSound - nice little stereo sample player
SampleZ - great sample editor/converter (edit huge samples!)
DiamondGUI & Mpega - best MP3 for slow systems - allows buffering
EaglePlayer - multi-format music/SID player (for game music)
STfax 4.1 - best fax software
PPT - image editor/converter - not as good as ImageFX, but free
APDF - good PDF viewer (but may crash with some PDFs)
XBaze - very nice database/GUI
TotalCalc - best scientific calculator
Some utilities I forgot:
FF - FastFonts from WB1.3 - get rid of that damn topaz!
AddTools - add items to WB Tools menu
MagicMenu - nice menu enhancer (but turn non-blocking OFF!)
Env-handler - copies only necessary files to ENV (saving memory)
ColorCatch - creates executable colour palettes for screens
And some neat little programs I love:
klide - super fast line drawing demo
rainbow - put a copper rainbow on screens (I've got it on MuchMore screens, GoldED and ABCdir - neato!)
...and I'm sure I forgot lots of awesome & useful (free) programs.