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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: runequester on April 08, 2010, 08:14:26 AM

Title: Ways to transfer ADF to actual floppies?
Post by: runequester on April 08, 2010, 08:14:26 AM
So it seems there's a few different options out there.
What is easiest, simplest and ultimately cheapest?

The caveat is, Im on a linux machine.

There's the easyADF kit which seems really easy, but my miggy is a 2000 and doesnt have a PCMCIA slot. I guess I could buy a cheap 600 just for that purpose

Amiga Explorer advertises being able to do this. Anyone have experience using that under WINE ?
Or experience with it in general ?

There's the catweasel option. Kinda pricey, and I'd have to get a floppy drive for my desktop, which is undoubtedly even more pricey.

Lastly, there's getting a CD ROM drive for the 2000, and just loading a pile of ADF's unto a CD, then using transADF or whichever to write them to floppy


Anything I am missing?
Title: Re: Ways to transfer ADF to actual floppies?
Post by: Thomas on April 08, 2010, 09:07:26 AM
Quote
my miggy is a 2000


68000 and Kickstart 1.3 will definitely reduce the options. I doubt that EasyADF works with Kick 1.3 and getting a CD drive to work is not so easy with this OS version, either.

I never tried WINE or Linux in general, but I believe that WINE can only be used to run stand-alone Windows applications. Amiga Explorer adds itself to the Windows operating system, it does not run stand-alone. So this is not an option, either.

Amiga Explorer works reliably from Windows, but I'd prefer to use it over network rather than serial cable because serial is slow and error-prone.

Talking about network, this would be an option, too. Get an X-Surf and connect the Amiga to your existing Ethernet LAN. Needs at least Kickstart 2.0 I think, though.

If you've got an accelerator (68020 at least) and at least Kickstart 2.0, then a Highway USB controller would be another valuable option. It enables you to use USB devices such as external hard drives, memory drives or card readers as well as keyboards and mouses.
Title: Re: Ways to transfer ADF to actual floppies?
Post by: runequester on April 08, 2010, 09:13:45 AM
I do have 2.0 ROMs in this box actually but it IS a plain 68000 processor. Hrm

Its starting to look like prowling for a cheap 600 might be the easiest option...
Title: Re: Ways to transfer ADF to actual floppies?
Post by: Cammy on April 08, 2010, 09:36:28 AM
The best thing would be some sort of SD card adapter that plugs into the parallel port, then you could easily plug it in and out between the Amiga and PC. Ferix is working on a project like this, let's hope we all get a chance to try out the finished product somehow.

Here are some links I hope you'll find useful. They're Amiga-PC networking/transfer solutions but you'll need a way to get the first disk image onto your A2000 first, so I hope you have Workbench!

Hombre: ADF Transfers via serial, parallel or PC floppy:
http://wiki.abime.net/file_transfer/hombre
Network Boot Disk: Connect your Amiga to a PC network or the internet:
http://jpv.wmhost.com/NetworkBootDisk/
Compact Flash Boot Disks: A couple of disks for transferring files and writing ADFs from a CF/SD card in a PCMCIA adapter:
http://home.exetel.com.au/amiga/CF-BootTracksaver.adf
http://home.exetel.com.au/amiga/CF-BootADFBlitzer.adf
Transferring Amiga Disks: http://www.jonnydigital.com/transferring-amiga-disks

I guess if your A2000 has a SCSI card then adding a CDROM drive would be a good idea.
Title: Re: Ways to transfer ADF to actual floppies?
Post by: Cammy on April 08, 2010, 09:40:29 AM
You really should get a Kickstart 3.1 ROM for your setup! Maybe a Kickstart ROM switcher too, like the one here - http://www.amigamaniac.com/ksrs.html

I have them in my A600 and A500.
Title: Re: Ways to transfer ADF to actual floppies?
Post by: som99 on April 08, 2010, 11:52:22 AM
The easiest way it to put your harddrive form the amiga in your PC and mount it with UAE.

Then download TSGUI http://aminet.net/package.php?package=disk/misc/tsgui.lha

You can use TSGUI to get the ADFs extracted to disk :)
Title: Re: Ways to transfer ADF to actual floppies?
Post by: tone007 on April 08, 2010, 02:57:26 PM
I used http://aminet.net/package/disk/misc/TransADF back when all I had was an A500+ with 2MB of RAM and 2 floppy drives, along with a null modem cable and a terminal program.
Title: Re: Ways to transfer ADF to actual floppies?
Post by: som99 on April 08, 2010, 03:02:38 PM
Quote from: tone007;552127
I used http://aminet.net/package/disk/misc/TransADF back when all I had was an A500+ with 2MB of RAM and 2 floppy drives, along with a null modem cable and a terminal program.


He can buy the amiga explorer and transfer files trough null cable also :)

But the easiet way is what I wrote above, just boot your Amiga harddrive in UAE and put TSGUI on it and the adf files you want then just run TSGUI on your real amiga and put the ADF files to disks :)

Easy as pie!
Title: Re: Ways to transfer ADF to actual floppies?
Post by: Bigbronc on April 08, 2010, 08:42:08 PM
How do you use your HD on your PC and mount with UAE, I have a sd card but my windows wants to format it not read it. I have been trying to transfer files to my amiga for some time, I need the drivers to my TBC IV card but can only find the drivers on line and have no way into my A2000.
Title: Re: Ways to transfer ADF to actual floppies?
Post by: T3000 on April 08, 2010, 09:14:13 PM
Quote from: Bigbronc;552217
I need the drivers to my TBC IV card but can only find the drivers on line and have no way into my A2000.


For a few dollars shipping, I can mail you a TBC-IV disk.
PM me and we can set something up.
Title: Re: Ways to transfer ADF to actual floppies?
Post by: Karlos on April 08, 2010, 09:14:33 PM
If your amiga HD is an ide device, attach it and it (use a spare IDE channel if possible and opt for cable select) and should become visible from WinUAE's "add harddrive" option in the drives section of the interface.

Don't attempt to access the drive from windows itself, it'll probably want to format it.

I've mounted real amiga hard drives on UAE many times when I've needed to transfer data too big for disks and when I was out of CDs. Also especially handy for reading large amounts of data, for backup purposes.

Nowadays, though, I just use a LAN.
Title: Re: Ways to transfer ADF to actual floppies?
Post by: desiv on April 08, 2010, 10:32:42 PM
I have heard that transwarp on the Amiga and the Windows program "ADF Sender Terminal" under WINE under Linux.
I've also heard you can start transwarp on the Amiga and "cat" the file to the serial port.
Haven't tried that yet tho.
(It's on the list. :-)  

desiv
Title: Re: Ways to transfer ADF to actual floppies?
Post by: som99 on April 08, 2010, 11:04:43 PM
Quote from: Bigbronc;552217
How do you use your HD on your PC and mount with UAE, I have a sd card but my windows wants to format it not read it. I have been trying to transfer files to my amiga for some time, I need the drivers to my TBC IV card but can only find the drivers on line and have no way into my A2000.


As Karlos said, put the HDD in your computer, makse sure you no not try to boot your computer from that harddrive ;)

DO NOT format it in windows, just ignore what it says, start UAE click the harddrive tab, add that harddrive it will be named the same as it's model number, Then do not forget to click Read/Write and use UAE as HD controller.

Here is a screenshot how it looks in winUAE, tho im using a CF card.

(http://www.underground-gamer.com/imagebucket/amigahd1.png)
Title: Re: Ways to transfer ADF to actual floppies?
Post by: Bigbronc on April 09, 2010, 12:51:11 AM
I installed Winuae, but it wants a path to the roms, where do I get them from?
Title: Re: Ways to transfer ADF to actual floppies?
Post by: Bigbronc on April 09, 2010, 12:52:06 AM
Not sure how to PM
Title: Re: Ways to transfer ADF to actual floppies?
Post by: som99 on April 09, 2010, 12:53:58 AM
Quote from: Bigbronc;552316
Not sure how to PM


I have send you a PM about how to obtain them :)
Title: Re: Ways to transfer ADF to actual floppies?
Post by: tone007 on April 09, 2010, 02:33:23 AM
Quote from: som99;552130
He can buy the amiga explorer and transfer files trough null cable also :)

But the easiet way is what I wrote above, just boot your Amiga harddrive in UAE and put TSGUI on it and the adf files you want then just run TSGUI on your real amiga and put the ADF files to disks :)

Easy as pie!

Accessing an old SCSI drive in UAE on a modern PC isn't exactly easy, especially if you don't have a SCSI card for your PC lying around (I'd bet most people don't.)

As for Amiga Explorer, why pay for something you can do for free?  Though Amiga Explorer would probably be alot simpler for most than getting an old SCSI drive running in a PC, or transferring files with ZModem.
Title: Re: Ways to transfer ADF to actual floppies?
Post by: som99 on April 09, 2010, 03:12:26 AM
Quote from: tone007;552355
Accessing an old SCSI drive in UAE on a modern PC isn't exactly easy, especially if you don't have a SCSI card for your PC lying around (I'd bet most people don't.)

As for Amiga Explorer, why pay for something you can do for free?  Though Amiga Explorer would probably be alot simpler for most than getting an old SCSI drive running in a PC, or transferring files with ZModem.


First off he have not stated wheter he has a SCSI or IDE controller.
Also most people I know has SCSI controller lying around at home.

Secondly Amiga Explorer is easy for everyone to use and it's quite cheep.
Title: Re: Ways to transfer ADF to actual floppies?
Post by: desiv on April 09, 2010, 03:30:25 AM
OK, I can tell you for sure that ADF Sender Terminal ( http://adfsender.stoeggl.com/ ) running under WINE in Linux works for transferring floppies to the Amiga who was running transwarp.

I just installed it (I chose the ZIP package, unzipped and ran the installer with WINE), chose COM1 19,200.

I told the Amiga : transwarp -w ser: -b 19200

I hit enter.  Went to the PC, selected the image of Firepower I DLd.  And it started transferring.

Several  ...  several ... several minutes later (It is serial! :-), it was done.  Rebooted, and Firepower started...

The fastest I was able to transfer on my Amiga 500 safely was 19,200.  (The laptop I was using had this REALLY old USB-serial port adapter.  I think you're supposed to be able to get to 38,400 with a standard A500.
I'll have to see how fast I can transfer to the A1200....

desiv
Title: Re: Ways to transfer ADF to actual floppies?
Post by: amigaksi on April 09, 2010, 04:30:07 AM
Quote from: desiv;552365
OK, I can tell you for sure that ADF Sender Terminal ( http://adfsender.stoeggl.com/ ) running under WINE in Linux works for transferring floppies to the Amiga who was running transwarp.

I just installed it (I chose the ZIP package, unzipped and ran the installer with WINE), chose COM1 19,200.

I told the Amiga : transwarp -w ser: -b 19200

I hit enter.  Went to the PC, selected the image of Firepower I DLd.  And it started transferring.

Several  ...  several ... several minutes later (It is serial! :-), it was done.  Rebooted, and Firepower started...

The fastest I was able to transfer on my Amiga 500 safely was 19,200.  (The laptop I was using had this REALLY old USB-serial port adapter.  I think you're supposed to be able to get to 38,400 with a standard A500.
I'll have to see how fast I can transfer to the A1200....

desiv


That's like 13X slower than reading from a floppy drive which is 250kbits/second.  Still much faster than hand entering the hex codes.

Is that transwarp a small program that doesn't rely on a bunch of libraries and where is it storing the ADF?  I tried Access terminal software once to transfer ADFs to Amiga using Windows Terminal program, but the software was huge that a 1MB A500 didn't have enough RAM disk space to read in the ADF.  It would be useful if it can copy directly to physical disk or run within a few kilobytes (including all libraries) so it doesn't hog up much RAM.
Title: Re: Ways to transfer ADF to actual floppies?
Post by: desiv on April 09, 2010, 04:50:07 AM
Quote from: amigaksi;552374
Is that transwarp a small program that doesn't rely on a bunch of libraries and where is it storing the ADF?

Yeah, it's pretty tiny.  It uses the standard serial device, but you can also use the baudbandit device for supposed faster speeds.

It will let you set the baud rate to as fast as the Amiga can handle.

Quote from: amigaksi;552374
It would be useful if it can copy directly to physical disk.

That's exactly what it does.  It writes to floppy directly.

desiv
Title: Re: Ways to transfer ADF to actual floppies?
Post by: runequester on April 09, 2010, 05:14:39 AM
Quote from: desiv;552365
OK, I can tell you for sure that ADF Sender Terminal ( http://adfsender.stoeggl.com/ ) running under WINE in Linux works for transferring floppies to the Amiga who was running transwarp.

I just installed it (I chose the ZIP package, unzipped and ran the installer with WINE), chose COM1 19,200.

I told the Amiga : transwarp -w ser: -b 19200

I hit enter.  Went to the PC, selected the image of Firepower I DLd.  And it started transferring.

Several  ...  several ... several minutes later (It is serial! :-), it was done.  Rebooted, and Firepower started...

The fastest I was able to transfer on my Amiga 500 safely was 19,200.  (The laptop I was using had this REALLY old USB-serial port adapter.  I think you're supposed to be able to get to 38,400 with a standard A500.
I'll have to see how fast I can transfer to the A1200....

desiv


sweet. THat may be the solution then. Propably don't have the patience to do it for Beneath a Steel sky or something but for games that are only one or two disks I guess it'll work.
Title: Re: Ways to transfer ADF to actual floppies?
Post by: runequester on April 13, 2010, 07:53:46 AM
aaand... as a bonus, my desktop doesn't have a serial port as it turns out. Argh
Title: Re: Ways to transfer ADF to actual floppies?
Post by: arnljot on April 13, 2010, 08:43:15 AM
I bought a ceap usb2serial cable
Title: Re: Ways to transfer ADF to actual floppies?
Post by: lauri.lotvonen on April 13, 2010, 09:21:05 AM
Quote from: runequester;553292
aaand... as a bonus, my desktop doesn't have a serial port as it turns out. Argh

I think that you have a free USB port, do you ? Then these would sort out the serial port probs you have :
http://www.dealextreme.com/search.dx/search.usb%20serial
Title: Re: Ways to transfer ADF to actual floppies?
Post by: gertsy on April 13, 2010, 11:52:59 AM
Sorry, not clear if your A2000 has scsi as a scsi HD was mentioned?  If so pop in a scsi cdrom (epay) and burn yourself an ISO Mode2 XA CDROM full of ADFs.  Don't forget to copy the ADF2DISK tool.

TransADF.  I remember that. So slow and so painful. They were dark times..