Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Software Issues and Discussion => Topic started by: ste182 on February 15, 2009, 12:50:58 PM
-
Hiya,
Sorry if this is in the wrong section, i just didnt know where to put this as this thread could fit in to multiple threads.
I`ve just got myself an amiga 1200 and im looking for some help with it. Ive just bought a new compact flash drive and a wireless card for it(ive read around and got the one that "apparently" works best its a netgear m4a01) both things have not arrived in the post yet. so i have a few questions and hoping someone can help me out.
1) when i get my wireless cared how will i get it to work
2) what is the best OS for the amiga 1200
3) how can i get games from my pc on to a floppy to work with the amiga 1200
4) some of the games i got with the a1200 dont really work and i get the orange message(whats this all about and how do i solve this)
5) how do i find out what hardware is in my amiga e.g kickstart version cpu and ram?
6) any good usefull tips that i could get the most out of my amiga?
thankyou very much for looking at this post and i hope someone replys soon i look forward to using this website!
:-D
-
Hello and welcome!
You can use EasyNet (http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=586) software to get it online
You may want to checkout WHDLOAD (http://www.whdload.de) for the games patches.
System information can be viewed using the ShowConfig utility in your System's Tools drawer. Alternatively you could use Piru's WhichAmiga (http://aminet.net/package/util/moni/WhichAmiga) or SysInfo.
-
thankyou very much for your help i will check that stuff out. I used to have an amiga 600 when i was a kid but i just used it for games that i had so i want to use it for more now and would like to know how. please keep the replys coming :D
EDIT:
i just checked out the links. My amiga 1200 doesnt have a cd drive how would i achived the easynet without having a cd drive or would getting one really help me out? And also what are lha files are they like .exe in windows? Im sorry about my noobish questions thanks alot
-
LHA's are compressed files...much like zips or rars, the need de-archiving before use.
If you are using a compact flash card you already have an easy way of transfering files from pc.
Search for the Prism2 driver package on aminet...that will get your wireless card online.
-
Dear Friend:
-Some games will not work because they were meant for an older chipset (on amiga 500) that is why you get an orange error message.
- Lha is a archive compression file. You can use lha to compress a file and save it to archive. You can also use lha to decompress it. You can get lha for free, just ask around.
- I also have an amiga 1200, is a great system for fun and hobby.
- If you get amos professional (it works on a1200), is easy to learn and use, and then you can make new original games for amiga. You can download amospro for free and join the amiga/amos community at:
http://amos.condor.serverpro3.com
At the amos factory you can get help to learn to code in amos.
- If you can get deluxe paint, you can use it to draw/paint and also to make nice pics to go with your amos games.
- If you can get aladdin 4d...is good enough for getting started to make 3d animation in amiga. (you can get it from amiga kit -www.amigakit.com-)
- If you can get a used copy of moviesetter off ebay, with it you can create nice cartoons and kinda like japanimation.
- I use my amiga for all of the above, and is lots of fun !!!
Hope this helps !!!
rednova
-
thanks guys.
I couldnt use the compact flash card for transfering as it will be used as a hardrive therefore inside my amiga, it would be painfull keep opening up my amiga to use it everytime.
So as i understand lha is like a rar file? IS it the primary compress type for the amiga?
yeah games programming for the amiga is something im interested in not at this time though just getting used to it first and getting it sorted out.
thanks for the replys. Is till havent heard anything about a good operating system yet though. Or best ones.
thankyou
edit:
ive also been checking out a few websites and heard of a PPC they sound pretty important how will i find out if my amiga has one and what is it? thanks
-
ste182 wrote:
So as i understand lha is like a rar file? IS it the primary compress type for the amiga?
Yes it is :-)
Best oprating system? It depends on yourself.
Personally I use OS3.9 on my A4000/060 and WB3.1 (ClassicWB) on my A1200/030
-
Some people cut a little slot on the side of the A1200 case, just above the pcmcia slot for the compactflash card to stick out of....pretty good mod.
Personaly i fitted a laptop cdrom inside my 1200.
I use ClassicWB on all my amigas even though i have 3.5/3.9, it works well and has nearly everything you need.
-
whats the difference between workbench and say os4.0?
Do you need any specifics to run os4.0 or does it make things slower?
I will probably be trying to install a cd rom in the future but maybe externally (if thats possible)?
thanks for the reply
-
You need an PPC accelerator card to run OS4....talking big money for one of those.
You can get external cdroms..they come connected to a pcmcia adaptor, or you could add a scsi cdrom with a squirrel scsi card or the scsi kit on an accelerator, the cheap way is to buy a buffered ide interface then hang an ide cable out of the back of the miggy.
-
how many ide slots are there in the amiga. i know theres the one for the harddrive and then the floppy drive but then how many others? i didnt know there were any so how could i get a cdrom to work?
edit: and roughly how much are the ppc cards?
edit: ive just looked at the buffered ide card and ignore this original post as i see it splits the ide and gives you more ide slots thank you this will be something i will be getting very soon. How would i install it though?
-
PPC cards go for between £300-£500, i've seen go for more on ebay.
The ide splitter is easy to install, you just plog it onto the exixting ide port..then install Idefix97 to activate the 2nd port.
-
ahhh right so you have your harddrive in the first port with the os installed and install the software and then you can plug whatever you want in to the seccond port. thankyou
-
ste182 wrote:
whats the difference between workbench and say os4.0?
Do you need any specifics to run os4.0 or does it make things slower?
Workbench is just the generic name for the GUI. OS4.0 is the newest version of the operating system. Currently, you need a PPC accelerator to run OS4, which will run you $400-600, which means putting the motherboard in a tower, which means $200 - $300 more, unless you want to take a generic PC tower and modify it to fit the 1200. A lot cheaper, but it means some work.
Look at Amigakit for those things.
-
ok so what operationg systems have i the chance for with out a ppc? thanks
-
0S3.9 and under....os3.9 and 3.5 realy require an 030 or faster.
-
I'll have a go at answering these too :-D
1. If you got the list of compatible wifi cards from Aminet, then you will find the driver files there too.
2. Best OS for A1200 depends what you are doing. If its a game machine then OS3/3.1 will suffice. I run OS3.5.
3. You can use another CF memory card (with PCMCIA adapter) in the side slot to move files between pc and Amiga. Search the forum - you format the CF as a PC card.
4. Various games were designed for the A500(+) and so you have a few early boot options (hold down both mouse buttons at boot up) to disable your A1200 extra's, or can get a floppy disk such as "Degrader" to allow them to run.
5. CPU will be standard 68020 unless you have a card in the trapdoor slot underneath, memory is also added on the trapdoor card - If no card then you have 2Mb.
6. If it is for games, you ideally want a 68030 accelerator with 32Mb RAM, a hard drive (or internal CF as you are doing), WHDload for running games from your hard drive. Note that faster accelerators (68040/60) are much faster, but will decrease the number of games that will play.
Just to make it more complicated, some simple RAM expansion boards, and cheaper accelerators will block the PCMCIA slot, which will prevent your wifi card from working ! Check first.
Keep asking and we will try to help :idea:
-
wow thanks homeer great help.
Ive just got a floppy disc drive for my pc to get games and play them(id prefer to use this method) so is there any formatting programs i need or anything like that?
And what is 030? how do i know if i have this?
-
Two ways:
1) If you have a Workbench floppy, boot from that, go into the Workbench:System/ drawer and double-click on Shell or CLI to open a shell window. Type "CPU" and press enter and it will tell you exactly what you have.
2) Turn the A1200 over (Be careful!). Open the trapdoor on the bottom gently with a flat screwdriver or similar. If there's a circuit board in there, you have some form of add-on. Looking at the chips and/or the name printed on the board will tell you which one it is. If it's empty, you just have the standard 14MHz 68020 that all 1200s are fitted with.
-
no i dont have any add-ons so could i run 3.8 or 3.7 well any apart from 3.5, 3.9 and 4.x?
thanks
-
Well, there aren't any versions other than the ones already mentioned. You can run 3.0 and 3.1 on yours without adding anything, and by adding a modest accelerator card and a CD-ROM drive you can run 3.5 or 3.9. TBH, for old games you don't need 3.5 or 3.9 and would be best off just sticking with whatever it has and getting a small accelerator/RAM card.
-
Okay that wil be something to look into next month when its payday again :-D
thankyou
Ive just realised something aswell. Right so im getting my wireless card, and to install it i need the program like prism 2 but i have no way of moving this software from my pc to my amiga other than floppys and ive been reading around that its near imposible to create a floppy in your pc that will run on amiga. So how do i overcome this?
-
AmigaOS includes a ultility called crossdoss that lets you read and write 720k pc formatted pc disks, it's ok for transfering smaller files.
Another option is to get a 16bit pcmcia memory card reader then use compact flash/sd/memory stick duo etc to transfer files.
-
DoogUK wrote:
AmigaOS includes a ultility called crossdoss that lets you read and write 720k pc formatted pc disks, it's ok for transfering smaller files.
but floppy discs are 1.4mb so how can i do it so its 720kb
-
That's OK, just format them at 720k even if they're 1.4m.
For transfering larger files, you can use a few options.
One, is to use AmigaExplorer and a special null modem cable 25/9 pin and you can transfer stuff very easily between your PC and Amiga. I found my cable in a local electronic store, but they show up on ebay occasionaly.
The other is to get yourself a PCMCIA Compact Flash card adaptor. Amigakit has them.
Workbench versions for the classic machines ran from 1.2, 1.3, 2.0, 2.1, 3.0, 3.1, 3.5, & 3.9. This PAGE (http://www.gregdonner.org/workbench/) has more info on that.
Oh, to format 720k PC format on your Ami, look in the Storage folder for a PC0 labeled icon. Move it into your DEVS:DOSDRIVERS folder. When you insert a floppy, a floppy icon with ???? will appear, click once, choose format from the menu and that will format it so that PC's recognize it.
-
ok kool, where is the storage folder? i dont have any hdd at the moment so i run wb 3 from the floppy disc, all i have is workbench 3 ram and ???? when i put another blank floppy in.
edit:
and also dont i need a ppc accelorator for os3.5 as someone mentioned?
-
PPC accelerator is for 0s4.
Edit: SOme parts of os3.5/3.9 provide support for A PPC accelerator but you cannot realy utilise it unless you have 0s4 and software specificaly designed to run on it.
It all boils down to what you want to do with your amiga.
If you just want to play games, listen to mods and some light surfing then a fast 030 and 3.1 is ideal.
The most important thing is extra ram, the stock A1200 virtualy doubles in speed just ny adding a ram expansion card with 4 or 8mb on.
-
Ah, without a hard drive you won't be able to use 3.5 or 3.9 either. On a floppy sustem, storage is on a separate floppy. Workbench consists of a set of 5 or 6 disks:
Workbench 3.0
Extras 3.0
Fonts
Storage
Locale
and an optional Install disk.
You'll need to copy the PC0 file from the Storage:DOSDrivers/ directory to the Workbench:Devs/DOSDrivers directory and reboot to make the driver available.
-
i do have a harddrive, it came today, its a compact flash harddrive 4gb i think it comes with 3.1 installed so i might stick with that ive read around that you can change the gui and add better icons is this true?
-
Daedalus wrote:
You'll need to copy the PC0 file from the Storage:DOSDrivers/ directory to the Workbench:Devs/DOSDrivers directory and reboot to make the driver available.
I would recommend that you make a backup set of your workbench disks and make changes on the backup disks, instead of messing around with the original disks ;-)
-
Oh, excellent! Though be careful if you only have the 3.0 ROMs - some software may fall over with mixed versions of the OS. Yes, you can replace the icons and modify pretty much anything about the way it looks by installing patches, but be warned - they'll take up more memory when they're running, and with only the standard 2MB it'll disappear fast :(
Have a look on aminet.net for NewIcons and Birdie. NewIcons extends the icon system to allow for better icons (of which there are vast amounts), and Birdie lets you change the appearance of window borders, gadgets and so on. MagicWB is an alternative system of nicer icons.
If the drive came preinstalled, it may even have some of these installed! A drive I bought years ago came with MagicWB already installed.
-
The most important thing is extra ram, the stock A1200 virtualy doubles in speed just ny adding a ram expansion card with 4 or 8mb on.
Don't forget that RAM add ons that don't involve a 68030 may block the pcmcia port. YMMV !
-
how do i find the c: directory because im being told to copy the installer to the c directory but i dont know how to find the c directory
-
ste182 wrote:
how do i find the c: directory because im being told to copy the installer to the c directory but i dont know how to find the c directory
The c: directory is on your SYS drive, which is DH0 if you have a hard drive. So it sould be DH0:c
-
on the workbench main screen all i have is ram, games 1, games 2 and workbench, if i go into multiview there is a c drive but nowhere on the workbence gui
-
Open a shell or cli and enter the command:
copy installer c:
Make sure you are in the same drawer wich installer is extracted to.
"c" is the drawer where most of the commands are stored.
"sys:c" is assigned as c:
"sys:" is your boot-drive.
Maybe somone can explain this better than I can :roll:
-
c: won't show up on Workbench unless you right-click and select "Window - Show - All Files" from the Workbench menu. Then you can drag Installer to the c: drawer.
There's a "Windows Explorer" type app for the Amiga called Directory Opus, that's almost an essential. It's here;
http://aminet.net/biz/dopus/DirectoryOpus-4.18.12.lha
But you will need an LHA extractor to extract Directory Opus before you install it. You can extract it with WinZip on the PC and put it on a CF card to install it.
Here's a screen dump of Directory Opus in action;
(http://www.katmandew.com/images/Misc/Amiga%20DOpus.jpg)
-
well good luck with the amiga, i to have just got a 1200, and unfortunatly i aint having any fun with it, i personaly think that they shold have been left back in the 90s, back then people didnt know any better,
-
leytond wrote:
well good luck with the amiga, i to have just got a 1200, and unfortunatly i aint having any fun with it, i personaly think that they shold have been left back in the 90s, back then people didnt know any better,
Some people nowadays..
You just have to accept that some of us like our hobby :-)