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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Software Issues and Discussion => Topic started by: on March 23, 2003, 11:02:09 AM
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I've read some threads here but i couldn't find a good solution. The problem is, i don't have workbench :(
I do have an external amiga floppy writer, maybe i could connect it to my pc and "convert" the adf files to a amiga disk using an emulator?
I just bought 3 amiga's yesterday so i'm a big amiga newbie hehe :)
P.S, i think i have kickstart 1.2 and i have a nulmodem cable.
Thanks in advance
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FES wrote:
I've read some threads here but i couldn't find a good solution. The problem is, i don't have workbench :(
> Damn ;)
I do have an external amiga floppy writer, maybe i could connect it to my pc and "convert" the adf files to a amiga disk using an emulator?
> Nope.
I just bought 3 amiga's yesterday so i'm a big amiga newbie hehe :)
P.S, i think i have kickstart 1.2 and i have a nulmodem cable.
> OK. So you'll need new ROMs its not that expensive, and then you can install a decent (recent) WB. like 3.1.
What Amigas did you get ?
Thanks in advance
> no PB
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quote: What Amigas did you get ?
-> i bought three Amiga 500's :)
quote: OK. So you'll need new ROMs its not that expensive, and then you can install a decent (recent) WB. like 3.1.
-> Can't i install a previous WB version with my current ROM? And how do you install WB?
Another thing, when i start my amiga without a floppy i get an image of a floppy with on it "Workbench 1.2" .... so i do have workbench? If i have it, how can i do things with it?
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Aloha,
quick note : KickStart and Workbench are not the same.
Kickstart is the ROM, that means a set of chips which are inside you Amiga.
Workbench is the OS. (Like windows, yuck !)
the hand that shows you 1.2 is the Kickstart version.
Now, you CAN'T have any OS on any Kickstart, they are bond together.
Workbencj 3.1 will work with Kickstart 3.1
Workbench 1.2/1.3 will work on kickstart 1.2/1.3
If you wanna have a modern WB you will need also a new set of ROMS.
The reason for that is Commodore released half of the OS on floppies and half on the ROM.
Many commands are a LOT faster coz they are on a chip. That's why the Amiga was superior to many windows machines today. They had a standard which was home made. Micro$oft could never make it possible due to MANY different motherboards.
Good luck ! :-D
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Welcome to the Wonderful World of Amiga :-)
The hand is basically a prompt to get you to insert any disk. Once a disk is inserted, it will boot off that (the Amiga can not just boot off kickstart).
The standard way to convert an ADF to a real disk is to boot the Amiga, then use a program on the ADF to write to a disk. Unfortunately, you seem to be in a bit of a catch-22 with this!
What I'd do is find someone who lives near you and could lend you a Workbench disk. You could then use this, and a program, to take your ADFs across.
What do you want the use the Amiga for? WB1.2 is very old - you'll find that most (if not all) modern software will run on it. If you can get yourself a 3.1 ROM, you will notice a huge improvement. It should be enough for "classic" games though.
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I just want to use it for those great old games :)
but can't i make my own workbench 1.2 disk (or is workbenc 1.2 useless for making an amiga disk of an adf file?) when i connect a commodore parallel floppy disk to my pc?
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FES wrote:
I just want to use it for those great old games :)
but can't i make my own workbench 1.2 disk (or is workbenc 1.2 useless for making an amiga disk of an adf file?) when i connect a commodore parallel floppy disk to my pc?
OK if you only need games, be just aware of that :
#=>The 500 uses the Old Chipset Set, witch only allows for execution of *old* games.
Not ALL Amiga games will run on your machines, typically not the latest. Bottomline : AGA & ECS NOT compatible.
There are some exeptions, I mean (quite) recent games, like Arcade Pool from team17, witch adapts itself to the host machine.
=> About the OS :
What you CAN run for now with your machines is the 1.2 WB, available anywhere.
Unfortunately the 3.1 ROM, witch amazingly are still available (http://www.aps.fr/amce.html) for the 500 (!) are quite expensive, but if you want to fully use those machines, try to buy one of those.
Where are you ? You need some help from a guy with the real Mc Coy here.
It's a chicken&egg stuff, the bottomline being
[color=990000]you can't possibly write Amiga floppies[/color][/b] let alone the OS bootdisks [color=990000]on a PC[/color][/b]
Don't get discouraged. SpeedBall2, Lemmings and BatteIsle are ahead ! :-P
pX
PS - I'm in Paris France, I can *send* you the floppies via snail-mail. On the other hand, I can dump the floppy to a
http://fdutils.linux.lu/disk-id.html file and send it to you ; you would then need some wizardry to write down every block to the FD exactly as they are laid on the AmigaFS track layout using "dd".
but that can be tedious 8-) and is not even garanteed to work. :-(
Those floppy stories bear a little magic. :-) Hell, I never managed to fully understand what's really going on with Amiga Floppy system. ;-)
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quote: Where are you ?
I live in the netherlands :)
I found an adress in holland where they sell kickstart roms .. it's 26 euro for a 3.1 rom, but that's more then i paid for all 3 amiga's together! And then i still don't have WB :)
And a small question, where can i find a rom in an amiga 500? do i have to open the amiga completely? (maybe there is a guide/tutorial about this?)
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You will need to completely open the A500 to see the ROM. Here is a picture:
(http://www.sothius.com/images/additional/a500board.jpg)
To the left of the big white A500 writing there is a vertical long chip - the smaller of the two (just above this chip is a silver thing - this is a crystal, but you don't need to worry about that). This long chip is the Kickstart ROM.
I couldn't find a guide on the net, but someone here will be able to help you.
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you would then need some wizardry to write down every block to the FD exactly as they are laid on the AmigaFS track layout using "dd".
No, this doesn't work with PC floppy controller. It's a HW issue.
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but can't i make my own workbench 1.2 disk (or is workbenc 1.2 useless for making an amiga disk of an adf file?) when i connect a commodore parallel floppy disk to my pc?
I'm not sure. Is this a amiga or c-64 thingie?
If it's amiga, it might be possible, assuming it can write disks...
The easy solution is either obtaining special hardware (http://www.jschoenfeld.de/products/cwmk3_e.htm) that can write amiga disks *OR* get someone to send you a amiga disk that has the needed tools for transferring files between your amiga and pc.
There is no need to buy Kickstart 3.1. Kickstart 1.2 is enough. In fact Kickstart 3.1 will break some old games, so it's not recommended for plain game machine.
You just need to get the transfer-disk on a amiga formatted floppy. I've written a program that can be used to transfer amiga disk images on 720K PC formatted floppies (image is split to half, 440K per disk, needless to say you need to do some serious disk swapping, esp if you don't have 2nd floppy disk drive). It requires either 1MB chip or 512K chip + 512K fast.
The problem is that you need this image on a amiga floppy, and you can't write it yourself. So you need some volunteer to do that on a real amiga and have the disk posted to you via snailmail.
If you find the volunteer, I can provide the disk image. Just drop me a mail (sintonen@iki.fi) and I'll send the disk image to the volunteer.
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If it's just for playing old games, I wouldn't bother installing a new ROM (at least for the moment). It's a bit of hassle (you need to take off the metal shielding) and wouldn't be needed for those games. What I would do it:
* Get a WB disk from someone
* Get a program from Aminet, called TransADF or something
* Copy the ADF files for the games onto the Amiga. You could put them onto a double-density IBM-formated disk, and read them with crossdos (if you have it). Or you could use the null-modem cable.
* Using this, make "real" disks from the ADF.
Don't expect the graphics and speeds from an A500 that you could get from UAE, but that should easily cope with older games. The only problem you might have is if the games want 1Mb of memory.
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Piru wrote:
you would then need some wizardry to write down every block to the FD exactly as they are laid on the AmigaFS track layout using "dd".
No, this doesn't work with PC floppy controller. It's a HW issue.
Ow, OK. That was hypothetical anyway.
Grrr, just what gives that we can't overcome this HWare thing ? :shocked: :ranting: :pissed: I know the thing, the *veeery* low-speed spinning, the dedicated Mitsumis, but Hey, this is Amiga, such a critical issue should have been addressed :hammer: in years, like so many others in hard/hack on Aminet !
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Umm.... quite probably you can copy perfect Amiga floppies on a windows machine. I haven't tried it but:
I use a program called Rawrite
It is available for MAc, Linux, Unix, and windows
It takes floppy 'images' and writes them straight to disk. This is usually most useful in wirting boot disks, or OS install disks. It is possible, but actually not so likely, that rawrite wouldn't be able to handle adf files, if they are simply perfect copies of the disk image though it should have no problems (it'll take any format, it justs directly writes the data)
Its rather irritating for someone like me that I have to use 3rd party products to handle image files.
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you can copy perfect Amiga floppies on a windows machine.
Sadly not. It's the way the Amiga floppy controller allowed far more control than the PC one. You can now get Amiga disks to ADF using a program called Disk2FDI - you need two floppy drives, though.
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I made some pictures of all the stuff i bought for only €25 (that's around $25):
-edit: it seems that it's not working-
Klik on this url and after that, you should be able to watch the pictures
http://hosting3.downloaden.com/vknet/ (http://hosting3.downloaden.com/vknet/)
http://hosting3.downloaden.com/vknet/foto/bewerkt_amiga1.jpg (http://hosting3.downloaden.com/vknet/foto/bewerkt_amiga1.jpg)
http://hosting3.downloaden.com/vknet/foto/bewerkt_amiga2.jpg (http://hosting3.downloaden.com/vknet/foto/bewerkt_amiga2.jpg)
http://hosting3.downloaden.com/vknet/foto/bewerkt_amiga3.jpg (http://hosting3.downloaden.com/vknet/foto/bewerkt_amiga3.jpg)
http://hosting3.downloaden.com/vknet/foto/bewerkt_amiga4.jpg (http://hosting3.downloaden.com/vknet/foto/bewerkt_amiga4.jpg)
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Nice deal!
What are the disks to the right? Even if you havn't got the actual WB disk, have you tried seeing whether any of them boot to a WB? As long as they're not games, there's a chance they could, and then you can go from there.
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i opened the external floppy disk, it's a chinon FX-354
and on this page there is some info about this device:
http://www.zimmers.net/cbmpics/damigas.html (http://www.zimmers.net/cbmpics/damigas.html)
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"The 1011 came along later with a sleek new look and lacking the 1010's pass-through port. It also contained a custom-wired Chinon 354 mechanism unlike the 1010. However, it did utilize the same 23 pin Amiga floppy port."
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So it seems to be a amiga floppy disk
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alx wrote:
Nice deal!
What are the disks to the right? Even if you havn't got the actual WB disk, have you tried seeing whether any of them boot to a WB? As long as they're not games, there's a chance they could, and then you can go from there.
I haven't tried al floppy's, only a few that contained the message "system disk" etc on the sticker. But those disks didn't contain a WB.
That monitor that you see is not 100% too, there is something loose in it, you have to hit it a few times to make it work and it failes a lot. So i haven't got a screen for my amiga's yet :)
I do have enought joy sticks hehehe, 8 joysticks, 3 mouses, a tv tuner, 3 amiga's, 3 power supplies, external floppy disk, monitor with SCART and lot's of floppys :)
so, it was a good deal :)
Now i have to find out if a disk contains WB, how can i recognise a WB in a program / game?
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Grrr, just what gives that we can't overcome this HWare thing ?
The PC floppy controller can't write continous track. Amiga floppy has full tracks and only gaps between them. PC floppy controller writes gaps to each track (9 normally).
See the (simplefied) picture below for rough idea:
(http://www.iki.fi/sintonen/pics/phystrack.png)
(NOTE: PC left, Amiga right. The amiga tracks don't start & end at the same position like in the picture, this is just for representation reasons).
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Piru wrote:
Grrr, just what gives that we can't overcome this HWare thing ?
The PC floppy controller can't write continous track. Amiga floppy has full tracks and only gaps between them. PC floppy controller writes gaps to each track (9 normally).
See the (simplefied) picture below for rough idea:
(http://www.iki.fi/sintonen/pics/phystrack.png)
(NOTE: PC left, Amiga right. The amiga tracks don't start & end at the same position like in the picture, this is just for representation reasons).
and an amiga EXTERNAL (parallel) floppy disk can't be connected to a PC?
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But those disks didn't contain a WB.
Did it just boot up to an application, or did the screen flash colours or something (if so, there's a h/w problem somewhere)
So i haven't got a screen for my amiga's yet :)
Do you have something called a modulator (I couldn't see one on the pictures). That allows you to plug an Amiga into the back of a TV (not great display, but it should work). Otherwise, you might need to get either:
* An old monitor that plugs straight into the back of the Amiga (new one's won't work unless they're multisync - the Amiga's display is only 15Hz)
* An adapter that plugs into the output and gives you SCART
* A modulator
* A Scandoubler (doubles the refresh rate for newer monitors) or a Flickerfixer (means interlace screens will work well on a modern monitor).
Now i have to find out if a disk contains WB, how can i recognise a WB in a program / game?
When you put in a disk, the display will change. Give it a while and eventually the Amiga should have booted from the disk. If you see an Amiga-DOS screen (a big window with some text and a prompt - probably white text on blue background) then you can do some stuff from there. If you get into a screen with icons, that's Workbench.
and an amiga EXTERNAL (parallel) floppy disk can't be connected to a PC?
Not unless you build you're own controller - there are instructions somewhere on the net for this.
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alx wrote:
Did it just boot up to an application, or did the screen flash colours or something (if so, there's a h/w problem somewhere)
>> Amiga showed the floppy with 1.2 on it :)
Do you have something called a modulator (I couldn't see one on the pictures). That allows you to plug an Amiga into the back of a TV (not great display, but it should work). Otherwise, you might need to get either:
* An old monitor that plugs straight into the back of the Amiga (new one's won't work unless they're multisync - the Amiga's display is only 15Hz)
* An adapter that plugs into the output and gives you SCART
* A modulator
* A Scandoubler (doubles the refresh rate for newer monitors) or a Flickerfixer (means interlace screens will work well on a modern monitor).
>> I have an SCART adapter, so i can plug my amiga to a device with a SCART connector, like most t.v's.
When you put in a disk, the display will change. Give it a while and eventually the Amiga should have booted from the disk. If you see an Amiga-DOS screen (a big window with some text and a prompt - probably white text on blue background) then you can do some stuff from there. If you get into a screen with icons, that's Workbench.
>> Ah, when i have a screen, i'll check all disks, i had a few disks with amigaDOS btw, but it started some application. Can i use those adf2disk programs in amigados?
Not unless you build you're own controller - there are instructions somewhere on the net for this.
Aha, well, that would be to technical for me :) I'll just hope someone has a WB disk for me :)
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I found out the other amiga has kickstart 2.0 :) Maybe that would make things easier?
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I found out the other amiga has kickstart 2.0 :) Maybe that would make things easier?
It does if you find Workbench 2.1 disks. Workbench 2.1 come with CrossDOS that allows you to read/write PC 720K disks.
Note: IIRC Workbench 2.0 doesn't have CrossDOS.
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So its a hardware problem dang.... works for Linux images, which are a different format (RAW) , but of course those are built for X86 floppy devices...
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I found a website in holland that's selling AmigaOS 2.1 disks, on the website they say it includes workbench. I mailed them for more info. It's not very expensive, around $15 (AmigaOS 2.1 disks + handbooks).
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Another small question, how can i see how much ram there is in my amiga 500? I've read you need at least 1mb ram to copy adf to amiga disk.
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Hi :-)
Silly question ? :
How can I transfert the contents of an HardDrive adf file back to a real HardDrive :-?
Or at least mount the adf file on my workbench :-?
Amigalement,
Jean-François.
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@° FES :
"how can i see how much ram there is in my amiga 500"
R : open a CLI and type : "avail" (without the quotes) and hit return :-)
Amigalement,
Jean-François.
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voxel wrote:
R : open a CLI and type : "avail" (without the quotes) and hit return :-)
And i need WB to open a CLI?
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And i need WB to open a CLI?
You need a disk with the avail command on it - WB would do nicely :-)
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alx wrote:
And i need WB to open a CLI?
You need a disk with the avail command on it - WB would do nicely :-)
Thanks you :) I'll order those disks asap :) hehe
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this is pure info to a newbie :-D
@FES
when i connect a commodore parallel floppy disk to my pc?
the amiga external floppy is not parallel ,it wont fit a parallel port.
p.s.
the amiga support up to 4 floppy drives.
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I'll receive the WB 1.2 and 2.1 disks next week, i also found a nice old tv to connect to my amiga :)
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I'm beginning to think again the Rawrite could write ADF files to disks. The thing where he had the picture of a floppy spilt into sectors is Formatting. Rawrite is a utility to nto have to use windows/dos format disks. It is specifically built to get around that. I haven't an Amiga to try it out on, but anyone with a Mac, Windows, or Linux Pc and an Amiga really should try it. It won't write the same way windows does, it can write disks windows can't read because of different format, for example I can write images of mac disks to it, and it comes out mac formatted.