Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: Mallette on May 22, 2007, 04:15:04 PM
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I am going to try to keep this as short as possible. I am a training developer for a large drilling company in charge of software development in Houston. I got into the business as a project manager for ARCO Technology Transfer Group in the 90's where we built a interactive training and simulation system patented as SimStation. While we developed many marvelous packages, the most successful and long lived was Production Safety Systems Training which simulated the safety systems of an offshore oil platform. I contracted in 1996 to port this to Windows (what a can of worms) and it was still being sold and unsurpassed until just recently. About 3 years ago I came into possession of one of the last of 60 SimStations. It is A4000 based with video overlay, a laserdisc player, CDRom, and custom multi-channel audio. It still booted last time I tried.
I want to preserve it...and maybe use it as there is NOTHING like Deluxe Paint in the PC world for 2D animations. I have a still shrink wrapped copy of the last DP version on CD.
Job one, however, is preservation. I need to back up the over 15 year old system drive first thing and have lost all my Amiga skills and references.
Is anyone interested in helping? Are there any surviving Amiga heads in the Houston area?
Regards, and long live REAL computers,
Dave
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I would have use for an A4000 too :), sure you can spare one of those 60 A4000's ;) ....
Hope you get help to do the preservation.
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Buy this for $15:
http://www.amigaforever.com/ae/
It will let you (using a null modem or "pc to pc" cable from office depot) drag the entire harddrive from the amiga to the pc as a single file... or all of the files/folders individually into a single folder on your windows desktop.
Another option for backing up the hard drive is to put it into a computer running some form of Unix (mac OSX, Linux, etc), and then issue this command:
dd if=/dev/DEVICE of=/dev/file
where DEVICE is the correct device of the hard drive... such as disk2 or /dev/hda2 , etc.
The first method will be the easiest and least time consuming.
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Thanks for the quick responses and interest. Gives me hope...
Not sure whether I still have a null modem around or not. Are there any cards around these days to network the Amiga to Windows? As I mentioned, I'd like to use the machine once the original system and software are backed up...upgrade the OS, etc. then be able to export to the Windoze world.
Also, are there any OS references available? I still have the original A2000 books, but the 4000 was significantly different...plus I've forgotten just about everything I ever knew, except that computing used to be FUN.
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Not sure whether I still have a null modem around or not. Are there any cards around these days to network the Amiga to Windows? As I mentioned, I'd like to use the machine once the original system and software are backed up...upgrade the OS, etc. then be able to export to the Windoze world.
Yep, you can get a network card for the a4000 and just use samba to access your windows shares or vice versa.
There is one problem though.. I think you need a mediator addon since i dont think there are much zorro based nic cards around these days. It would have been a whole lot of easier if it was a a1200 since you could just put a nic card into the pcmcia port.
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Awww. Why go the hard route. Just borrow a CDRW from a PC, get yourself the free version of MakeCD and backup your harddrive onto a CD. Why mess with a dumb PC?
Here's the page MAKECD (http://makecd.core.de/)
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You guys can't realize just how far I am from anything Amiga these days. I once spoke REXX and knew Fat Agnus personally. I am quite lost now and a Bill Gates zombie waiting minutes for something that should happen in nanoseconds.
I have no idea what a mediator is and had to parse awhile to remember what a zorro slot was/is.
On the CD side, will the Ami recognize an IDE burner? That appears to be the path of least resistance at the moment, though I do intend to dig around in my junk for a null modem.
I (a year ago or so) tried to get a SCSI HDD to be recognized (there is a SCSI card in SimStation for reasons I cannot remember) but it wouldn't show.
Dave
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Try using PC2AMIGA.
It requires a little fiddling with some serial cables. It requires that you find a live PC with a usable serial port.
A little help can be found here:
Troubles with PC2Amiga (http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=8984)
turn of screen blankers and power savers and now use the amiga to transfer the files to the PC. It is a slow option, but it works.
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Mallette wrote:
You guys can't realize just how far I am from anything Amiga these days. I once spoke REXX and knew Fat Agnus personally. I am quite lost now and a Bill Gates zombie waiting minutes for something that should happen in nanoseconds.
I have no idea what a mediator is and had to parse awhile to remember what a zorro slot was/is.
On the CD side, will the Ami recognize an IDE burner? That appears to be the path of least resistance at the moment, though I do intend to dig around in my junk for a null modem.
I (a year ago or so) tried to get a SCSI HDD to be recognized (there is a SCSI card in SimStation for reasons I cannot remember) but it wouldn't show.
Dave
Sure, it should recognize any IDE device, since thats the standard in the A4000 and A1200 vs SCSI for all the older Amiga models. Just download the MakeCD program, and it'll list the drives that have been tested with the program.
As with any SCSI device, make sure that the ID on the HD is different from the others (if you have others hooked up).
Did you run HDToolbox or was the HD already formated in AmigaDOS?
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How large is the hard drive to be backed up? a standard IDE CD writer is a good idea, but you will need a CD file system (available on aminet) and the makeCD software. All pretty easy, and straight forward. Or, if you have another IDE hard drive just lying around, that will work too.
If you are going to put the machine into use, just keep an eye eBay for a Zorro network card - they popo up every now and then.
Good luck!
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Amiduffer:
Thanks for the above. I don't recall, but I think I was using a previously formated disk. It will likely be several weeks before I can experiment. I work 10 on, 5 off and will be going on vacation for a couple of weeks starting next week.
I've a number of burners kicking around so perhaps one will work. If not, they are certainly cheap enough.
I am looking forward to this, though I suppose I will be reminded of just how far downhill we've come since the Amiga. The next iteration of that simulation I mentioned in the opening was going to be VR. PC still can't handle VR properly.
Anyway to post pix on this BBS? I've a number of inside and out pictures I could post of SimStation if anyone is interested.
Dave
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Motrucker:
I think the sysdrive is no more than 300mb. Seems I tried to get another IDE drive recognized but was thwarted somehow. I am going to keep all these ideas open until I have the time (several weeks from now) to drag out SimStation (about 75 lbs.!!!) and boot up. I'll be able to provide a full report to you guys.
Regards,
Dave
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Ja, choose 'Images' from the top of the screen, and click 'submit your image.' We would like to see those pictures!
http://www.amiga.org/gallery/upload.php
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Wouldn't it be easiest to just unplug the Amiga's harddrive and mount it in WinUAE? It's a no-brainer.
Fiddling with drivers, filesystems etc on the Amiga side is far more time consuming, especially for someone who's been on the dark side for so many years.
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I agree with Amiduffer. Get a CD Burner, back up the thing and then go from there. If he cant remember much about Amigas telling him about the Mediators and stuff is just more confusing and a bit of a hassle, not to mention for cost effectiveness the CD Burner is cheaper and probably easily available.
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Oh yes! Pictures of your setup would be pretty nifty.
madsjm wrote:
Wouldn't it be easiest to just unplug the Amiga's harddrive and mount it in WinUAE? It's a no-brainer.
Fiddling with drivers, filesystems etc on the Amiga side is far more time consuming, especially for someone who's been on the dark side for so many years.
Nah. Keep it simple. I'd work within the system he has currently, since it seems to be rather a unique setup. Plus, its better to muck around in the guts of WB and hardware to get back into the swing of how it works.
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Okies, I am parsing this and wondering if the premium edition of Amiga Forever might do the job. Tell me if this would work:
Pull the SimStation HDD
Boot to UAE
Use Amiga Forever to image the SimStation HDD to PC HDD.
Store the original drive
Put a fresh IDE HDD on the PC
Use HD Toolbox to prepare
Restore the image to it
Reinsert in SimStation
Have some fun...
I will see if I can dig up my pix of SimStation when I get home this evening and post tomorrow. It was (is) a pretty impressive accomplishment.
Dave
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Question, do you have OS3.1, 3.5 or 3.9 with you? If you do, simply take the SIMharddrive out of the 4000, put the new one in, format it with a fresh install of the Workbench, make the SIMhd a slave, install it in the 4000, and just copy all the files to the new harddrive.
Keep it simple and you'll have less trouble.
Although Amiga Forever is cool, if you want to take your amiga anywhere if you've got a laptop.
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@Amiduffer
Well Said! thats exactly the easiest and cheapest and bestest way.
Format a different hardrive like he said, then just copy all the files across
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@Mallette:
Tell me if this would work:
Pull the SimStation HDD
Boot to UAE
...
Yes, it would. But you need to make sure that your PC is running Windows XP/Vista (perhaps Windows 2000 aswell, not sure), older versions of Windows will overwrite important parts of your AmigaHD's content and thus make it unreadable.
Forget about using a CD burner with the Amiga - the A4000's standard IDE driver can't handle ATAPI devices (i.e. CD drives/burners). There are of course solutions for that problem, but they require installing a patch.
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I'm in Houston, and can help when you get around to working on this if needed. Best way to reach me is mrbill@gmail.com.
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Lots of good stuff coming my way via this fine forum, but the best so far is Mr. Bill. Expect email soon, sir.
I searched my nearly 2 terabytes of files last night and couldn't come up with my pix. My time was limited and I'll either come up with them or make some more when we dig into this baby. You will love it. Marvelous piece of engineering never yet equaled in the peecee world, IMOH. Unfortunately, I did not fully understand what Herr Gates meant when he told us "I will change the way America computes..."
Now, to hijack my own thread, I'd like to ask you guys what is REALLY going on. My brief survey of the remnants of the Amiga culture are rather confusing. On one side, it appears to have dried to a mere puddle with only the turtles, gators, and other diehard left. OTOH, Amiga, Inc. in late news seems to be poised to launch new hardware (how many times have I heard that since '96?). They also appear to be messing in their own bed with lawsuits. Then, MorphOS appears to be a partisan group at odds with the orthodox Amiga crowd, but with a solution that, at least on the surface, appears good and also would appear to advance the technology.
The above might be an analogy of the Middle East.
So, my friends, of what pursuasion are you?
Dave
mrbill wrote:
I'm in Houston, and can help when you get around to working on this if needed. Best way to reach me is mrbill@gmail.com.[/quote]
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Alrighty, then. I've an offer from Bill to work on this, and an offer on an ethernet card if the work goes well and I can put it her to work.
I'll post some pix and other info on SimStation when I can dig them up.
Thanks to all for your support! This is a great community.
Dave
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Hi Mallette. Good luck on your Amiga/Lazarus project.
As far as the fate of our hardware? Better left unsaid. Too many stepped on toes, burn-outs, and bruised egos.
Short story, string of dead companies that touched the hardware, and today, scammers "owning" the name but doing nothing. A couple of people like Jens actually producing some hardware to keep the old hardware going somewhat.
Just do a search of old topics and you'll read the painfull discussions. It's a sad story though.
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Myself, I'm getting "back into" Amiga hardware and software because, frankly, nothing else beats it. I had an A1000 as my primary computer system from 1990 to 1993, and never found anything that I couldn't do with it.
Unfortunately I had to switch to a PC clone because of college work, but always missed the Amiga. I finally decided to do something about it after reading "On The Edge: The Rise and Fall of Commodore" about six months ago, and have since lucked into picking up a couple of "big box" Amigas fairly cheaply.
I'm in the process of resurrecting those systems and upgrading them to run OS3.9, and getting familiar with All Things Amiga that have happened since my days of running 2.04 on a soft-kicked A1000 and dual floppy drives. I can emulate pretty much any system config I want with WinUAE or EUAE on my 20" Intel-based iMac, but it's NOT THE SAME as sitting in front of actual hardware (that I could never have afforded as a high school student in a small town).
After the Amiga trademarks/rights have been passed around so much, I'll be surprised to actually see the recently-announced Amiga hardware actually be available for purchase. So much has been promised in the past ten years, and so much NOT delivered. In addition to that, I have to look at things and think "$500 for a PowerPC Amiga, or $0 for super-fast emulation on my existing Mac?" Hard to justify the purchase when you expect this incarnation of Amiga Inc. to go under in a year or two.
It is amazing to see the amount of software and hardware still currently produced and available for "Classic" Amigas, and the wealth of reference information available on the Web for hardware made almost twenty years ago, although the prices commanded for things like ethernet and RTG cards amaze me (and keep me from having a network-connected Amiga, as I can't afford an ethernet card).
All in all, I'm having a great time.
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Amiduffer:
I'll probably pass on a complete sob story. I went through a bit of it in the first few years before dropping out and turning off. I think it's been long enough for me to take what I can in the spirit of "use it for what it does best" and leave out false hopes.
I know I've given up hope on the personal computers promise for my lifetime. Freedom from the iron boot of Microsoft is out of reach...but it will come.
Nobody took the original Mac "1984" ad seriously, including me. Very prescient. Of course, the Mac turned out no better. It could be, but Microsoft only suffers their existence to prove they are not a monopoly. Apple knows if they did anything REALLY good they'd get squashed.
Morgan, Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, and the rest were complete amateurs compared to Gates. His monopoly is far more complete than any of theirs ever were, and he has gotten away with it.
It's the only thing I really credit him for.
Dave
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Mallette wrote:
....
Job one, however, is preservation. I need to back up the over 15 year old system drive first thing and have lost all my Amiga skills and references.
A4000 preservation rule #1: Check the motherboard battery!
It's a nasty time bomb waiting to ooze corrosive fluids all over the delicate innards of your piece of computing history.
Remove it totally and replace it with a rechargeable lithium cell. There are several people here who have done this and submitted images of the modification to the gallery.
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@mrbill
" Myself, I'm getting "back into" Amiga hardware and software because, frankly, nothing else beats it."
How's is life under that rock?
@Mallette
"freedom from the iron boot of Microsoft is out of reach...but it will come."
what you never heard of linux? or any of the other OS's that would exactly what you need? Better wait for that new amiga.
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guru-666 wrote:
@mrbill
" Myself, I'm getting "back into" Amiga hardware and software because, frankly, nothing else beats it."
How's is life under that rock?
"freedom from the iron boot of Microsoft is out of reach...but it will come."
what you never heard of linux? or any of the other OS's that would exactly what you need? Better wait for that new amiga.
As to "How's life under that rock?"...it's not enough to object without offering an alternative.
As to Linux, my CanDo Amiga programmers were running it by 1996. I still have hopes it will get somewhere, but I've seen nothing there yet that I need. No drivers for my high end soundcards that I use to build location recorders, no DPaint for animations, just not much for me.
Dave
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linux has already gotten some where. Im a 3d animator working on feature films with linux all day long. LOTs has happend since 96. a lot more than on the amiga side. Dpaint was nice now I use shake.. I don't know what you need to do, but im sure shake (apple) can do it. It would not even be hard to program something simple like dpaint for lunux...could make it even better for your use. Amiga is dead, it was pretty good back in the day but thank god things have evolved. Do your self a favor and download unbuntu. then you will see you don't need mircosoft.
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guru-666 wrote:
How's is life under that rock?
I didn't say it was better than anything currently available; I'm talking about the user experience. The Amiga was the first computer I ever really *enjoyed* and had fun using.
I'm far from living under a rock; I've run SUNHELP.ORG (for Sun/Solaris users) for ten years now, have used Macs on and off since the days of the Mac Classic (fulltime since 2001), and manage a few hundred Linux/Solaris/IRIX/Windows systems at the office.
In my opinion, modern Mac systems running OSX come closest to the "make using the computer as easy as possible" vibe I had when I used my Amiga 1000 - it got out of the way and was simply a tool, rather than something you had to struggle against to make it do what you wanted. Various Linux distributions come in second.
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hmmm, I see what you mean. I just don't understand what wrong with linux. It's great. I mean amiga willnever catch up.
I also started on the amiga and loved it (still do) but in hindsight its clear the commodore had no idea what the future would hold, the internet, steaming media, realtime 3d rendering... the amiga missed the boat by quite a bit quite a long time ago. :-D
as for highend audio driver... there are lot of driver for the linux, have you check recently? Also if you are writing software why not write a driver for your audio cards? Heck you could even relese it on open source and help the next guy,, the true amiga sprit. BTW there are even fewer drivers avaibale on amiga
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Well, I am certainly open minded and have a number of peecees I don't want to pay Bill to resurrect. When I get some time I'll piddle with Linux again to see what is new since about 2 years ago when I found it fine for hacking, but not much else.
As to Shake, is it 100.00? That would be my first question. And really as capable for 2D as DPaint? You'd certainly have my ears...
Point is, I have the last gen DPaint and a machine that only needs a few cobwebs shaken out to get going. Price is right.
I'll do a bit of research on my own.
Dave
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well shake is $500 ( a deal as it use to be thousands) but it not the same as dpaint, it's a compositing package. It alows you to paint (quick paint) and has a nice timeline.
I'm not sure you will find it very dpaint like. (but again in my mind that not a bad thing as dpaint was very limiting)
You should for sure fix up the amiga you have... why not... if I where in your area I would help you. On the amiga I also like imageFX...
I just get a bit cross when ppl claim the amiga was/is the best computer ever, becasue it was not and is not...
I also feel like you are selling linux a bit short as even a few years ago we where crunching out feature films with it. Not "hacking" as you put it.
Just sounds like you could use linux for your bussiness with out to much trouble, since you don't like working for bill. I work for a large studio and if its good enough for us it should work for you also.
best of luck!
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I could only use Linux for developing elements and rapid prototyping. Delivery has to be via you-know-who. Does it do TRUE multi-tasking now? My need for sound card drivers is hobby. I use ESI Pro for surround sound recording and Card Deluxe for stereo. I am a long way from coding now and mainly design logic flowcharts to really upset the coders who have to realize them...especially things the Amiga did so well and Windows only does with a gun to it's head.
I also have little need for compositing. Mainly 2D anims for process flow and such. Frankly, it is difficult to imagine anything better than DPaint at that.
I really have to go with those in the "no comparison" category.
If Linux is providing true preemptive multitasking, single spec per file type, graphics and sound via dedicated processors like God intended, a REXX scripting language to tie all the stuff together, and all the other things we took for granted 15 years ago, I've definitely missed it. If it has finally caught up, I still have to ask what wonders we'd have now if the clock had suddenly not been stilled.
JMHO.
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oh yes linux has been multitasking for quite some time!
If you have a nvidia card, yes it will use gpu ( you need to install the right drivers!)
I'll bet it even has drivers for your audio cards built in.
http://www.ubuntu.com/
go download this and give it a shot, you will be happy.
Hey I'm not going to knock dpaint... it's nifty. It's simple because if it LIMITED tool set. Shake can do all that plus more, but odds are you don't need the extra.
ther eis a lack of tools that compare... try project dog waffel
anyway with wine (windows emulation) built into your linux there is very little reason anybody "HAS TOO" use windows. honestly.
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OK, guru666, you're on. It will be a while, but like I said, I am open minded and always looking for something, ANYTHING, that will show me at least a modicum of improvement over the crap I use daily.
One more thing...does Linux use any virtual HDD? To me, that is the SINGLE (of many) worst aspect of the Empire. Insane. Archaic. Something only an idiot or saboteur would do.
Dave
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As I promised, I've registered at ubuntu. With vacation and the SimStation up first, it will be several weeks before I can plow in.
When I found it had a good chance of running my audiophile usb, and possibly my ESI Pro audio, that did it.
I am also hopeful for wireless g support.
First project will be an emachines laptop whose Windows went south and I could not find the restore disks. Nice widescreen laptop, but I find myself wretching at having to pay BG ONCE AGAIN for the privilige of running his bug-ridden POS (pitiful operating system).
It will be my first new adventure since Commodore went south and I promised myself not to get hooked on anything not mainstream again. I've been watching Linux (and other things) now for a long time and I think the time is now. I am sure it will be frustrating, but so was soldering my first 6502 Sinclair Z-80. Yer as young as yer OS...
Dave
Mallette wrote:
OK, guru666, you're on. It will be a while, but like I said, I am open minded and always looking for something, ANYTHING, that will show me at least a modicum of improvement over the crap I use daily.
One more thing...does Linux use any virtual HDD? To me, that is the SINGLE (of many) worst aspect of the Empire. Insane. Archaic. Something only an idiot or saboteur would do.
Dave
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And it requires you to have a serial port on the PC, which no laptop has and an increasing number of desktops don't have. Legacy ports are disappearing as manufacturers find it cheaper to leave them off.
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This is a better distro for Amiga heads:
http://www.sabayonlinux.org/
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persia wrote:
And it requires you to have a serial port on the PC, which no laptop has and an increasing number of desktops don't have. Legacy ports are disappearing as manufacturers find it cheaper to leave them off.
What does this refer to?
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use dcp
its Amiga version of dd so it will make 1:1 copy, I have used it to sucessfully backup god-knows-how-old MFM harddisk on 2090a !
its inside bffs on aminet (http://aminet.net/search?query=bffs)