Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => General chat about Amiga topics => Topic started by: pooboy_92 on October 27, 2010, 06:46:53 PM
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Hi everyone this is my fisrt post here so if its in the wrong spot feel free to move it:).
I recently bought an amiga 500, but I quickly learned that I did not have the workbench disk. It needs version 1.3, my question is that does anyone in Maryland happen to have a disk or a copy they would be willing send my way. I could pick it up meet you or you could mail it.
Any help is welcome thank you. ps also looking for games floppy drives or anything else.
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UPDATE: Thanks for all of the help guys i should now have a disk very soon but thank you for the help. Feel free to continue your debate I am enjoying reading it.
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Does that NCAUG Amiga user's group still exist? They were in your area, once upon a time...
I'm in Northern VA, so pretty local to you (saw your post on craigslist too, LOL). I haven't pulled out my Amiga disks in years, but if you don't have any other luck, I may be able to dig something out this weekend. A better bet would be if someone here could mail you one, though, since that's more likely to work. ;-)
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Welcome here,
You can find this disk on EvilBAY...available in USA, but I think it will be a (illegal) copy!
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I'm in Australia but I can send you a freshly written floppy with Workbench 1.3 on it if you'd like. I'm poor but I don't mind helping out a fellow Amiga user in need. Let me know if you don't mind waiting for international delivery from around the world.
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Thanks for the quick responses I just found a copy on ebay and snatched it up if it dosnt work I may still ask someone here. Thanks for all of the help still looking for things like external floppy drives harddrives and such.:)
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Great Cammy! :)
Girl power! :D
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Cammy has helped to a couple of us (and when I first saw her old avatar, I thought it was a drawing...)
If you want to meet the cheapest and best amiga seller on Ebay and Ebid, it's Tony. Look here:
http://desc.shop.ebay.es/airey36/m.html?LH_TitleDesc=1&_nkw=disk+drive&_trkparms=65%253A12%257C66%253A1%257C39%253A1%257C72%253A1229&_sop=2&_trksid=p3911.c0.m14 (http://desc.shop.ebay.es/airey36/m.html?LH_TitleDesc=1&_nkw=disk+drive&_trkparms=65%253A12%257C66%253A1%257C39%253A1%257C72%253A1229&_sop=2&_trksid=p3911.c0.m14)
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Hey Cammy,
You write you're poor so I would like to send you 5 disks...+ a little manual.
It's not a joke.
If you want, I can send you a picture!
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I never had much fun with Workbench on a plain 500, especially not 1.3. I'd go for the games!
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I never had much fun with Workbench on a plain 500, especially not 1.3. I'd go for the games!
I have to agree with you here, because Workbench 1.3 couldn't show files that had no icons in the windows, and I had to use the Shell for doing most stuff. It almost felt like Workbench was something that just was there for no real practical reason + it used some precious RAM as well. So in the end I used a disk which booted directly into Dos instead.
It wasn't until I upgraded to Workbench 2.04 the fun started for me.
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Just torrent it.
I'm not a troll.
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Just torrent it.
I'm not a troll.
Yes but "pooboy 92" will still have a problem with transferring the ADF to his Amiga. His best chance is that Cammy or somebody else sends him a floppy.
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Yes but "pooboy 92" will still have a problem with transferring the ADF to his Amiga. His best chance is that Cammy or somebody else sends him a floppy.
True.
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I have to agree with you here, because Workbench 1.3 couldn't show files that had no icons in the windows, and I had to use the Shell for doing most stuff. It almost felt like Workbench was something that just was there for no real practical reason + it used some precious RAM as well. So in the end I used a disk which booted directly into Dos instead.
It wasn't until I upgraded to Workbench 2.04 the fun started for me.
I just used Diskmaster 1.4 for file work..:roflmao:
Chris :roflmao:
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You know I have to say this is the most helpful forum I think I have ever been on
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... I had to use the Shell for doing most stuff.
You say that as tho it's torture to use a command line!!! :roflmao:
That Amiga shell is awesome. Might not be BASH, but at least it's not ksh. ;-)
Seriously, I got a program included with my external floppy (CLIMate or Diskmaster???) that fit the bill for me. 1.3 with that was great..
Although, I still spent a lot of time in the shell.. Because I like it.. :lol:
desiv
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You didn't list your location, But - I am in Edgewater Maryland, just south of Annapolis. If that's close to you, I can hand you a copy of what you'll need.
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I just used Diskmaster 1.4 for file work..
Chris
Personally I used and still use FileMaster for managing files on my Amigas.
You say that as tho it's torture to use a command line!!! :roflmao:
That Amiga shell is awesome. Might not be BASH, but at least it's not ksh. ;-)
Seriously, I got a program included with my external floppy (CLIMate or Diskmaster???) that fit the bill for me. 1.3 with that was great..
Although, I still spent a lot of time in the shell.. Because I like it.. :lol:
desiv
But it was torture to use a command line..... everytime I had to use MS-DOS that is :lol:
I have to agree, Amiga shell is awesome, but I think you didn't get my point here, because what I meant was that for example if I wanted to run a program that didn't have an icon, I couldn't do this from Workbench, I had to open a Shell and run it from there instead. This plus many other things made the actual Workbench seem a bit reduntant in my opinion.
So I made a customized startup disk which booted directly to AmigaDos instead, and by entering a command I got a menu that allowed me to start various programs like FileMaster and a text editor + other stuff.
Later I upgraded to AmigaOS 2.04 where I created a highly customized Workbench floppy which I then used.
And I must say that I regard 2.x to be the most important AmigaOS version ever!
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If you want to meet the cheapest and best amiga seller on Ebay and Ebid, it's Tony. Look here:
http://desc.shop.ebay.es/airey36/m.html?LH_TitleDesc=1&_nkw=disk+drive&_trkparms=65%253A12%257C66%253A1%257C39%253A1%257C72%253A1229&_sop=2&_trksid=p3911.c0.m14
Not likely for people in the U.S. with shipping costs!
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... but I think you didn't get my point here, because what I meant was that for example if I wanted to run a program that didn't have an icon, I couldn't do this from Workbench, I had to open a Shell and run it from there instead.
No, I got your point. I was kind of joking.
But seriously, it didn't take me too long to figure out, all I needed to do was keep a spare "program.info" file that I could copy and rename (using the shell or the GUI file manager program I had).
I admit, it felt like there were a few things missing for the 1.x WBs.
But with a GUI file manager, it wasn't a problem.
It was nicer tho when those were built in in the 2.x/3.x versions.
desiv
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Send me a PM with your address and I'll send you a workbench 1.3 disk
That way you can start enjoying your Amiga
Hi everyone this is my fisrt post here so if its in the wrong spot feel free to move it:).
I recently bought an amiga 500, but I quickly learned that I did not have the workbench disk. It needs version 1.3, my question is that does anyone in Maryland happen to have a disk or a copy they would be willing send my way. I could pick it up meet you or you could mail it.
Any help is welcome thank you. ps also looking for games floppy drives or anything else.
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You didn't list your location, But - I am in Edgewater Maryland, just south of Annapolis. If that's close to you, I can hand you a copy of what you'll need.
I sent you a PM I hope you got it
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I can't believe some of you guys are ripping on OS 1.3! lol
It was quite fine for what it was back in the day, plus we had a shell (as others have pointed out), unlike Mac's at the time AND other filemanagers were readily available, even though I never had a real need for 'em.
To those that be hating Workbench 1.3, try using an early Atari ST sometime with its TOS and GEM - talk about a near worthless barebones stripped OS ;)
To the OP - hopefully the disk you receive from someone is on a DS/DD disk, not a DS/HD disk that may not work in your drive. Best to feed your Amiga double density disks for now, to eliminate and potential aggravation :)
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Save; I agree with ya... OS1.3 wasn't that bad. I used it for 5 years on my 500 before upgrading.
Though, eventually, I became an Amiga 'upgrade whore' and went crazy, now all machines are OS3.1 or 3.9
Pooboy_92: In addition to the WB disk, you may want to have someone send a disk of useful utils. , like the aforementioned FileMaster, SnoopDos, Degrader, maybe some un-archivers w/GUI....
I'm in Milwaukee, WI, and poor too... :( But, I'd be happy to help out.. lord knows, I have enough floppies to spare....
(Yes, even DS/DD disks, save!)
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Save2600; I agree with you too. 1.3 is nowhere as nice as 3.1, but it works rather well, and with the shell and/or DM 2 you can get work done rather easily.
I may be close enough to hand him (pooboy) the disks he needs. So, I'll do what I can. This is one reason I miss the old user groups...
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VingtTrois, that's very kind of you but I actually have plenty of floppy disks, I was lucky that the electronics shop across the road was getting rid of boxes of 25 and 10 disks for $1 per box, so I grabbed a bunch, went back a week later and they said no one else had bought any so I picked up the rest. I just can't afford postage for them at the moment, I spent my rent money on Halloween props and decorations :p
But for others I think we should clear up the Double-Density/High-Density issue. Amiga Technologies A1200s (not Commodore A1200s) have modified high density PC floppy drives in them, and so they can't read HD disks formatted as DD unless you put a small piece of tape over the extra hole on the disk. Some A4000s with Amiga HD drives might also require the tape over the hole of a DD-formatted HD disk, but they can also read true HD disks formatted in 1.44MB DOS or 1.76MB Amiga format. Amiga 500s and 500+ computers all came with Amiga DD drives, and so they have no idea what a HD disk is anyway, and simply recognize every disk as DD.
However, a Double-Density-formatted High-Density disk is more susceptible to data integrity issues and can develop read errors over time, sometimes even after a few uses. These errors don't seem to be physical, so the disks themselves aren't damaged once the errors develop and you can usually rewrite the disk back from the ADF or DMS image and it will work fine again for a while. Some people say that if you write the image to the disk twice or three times first it stays on there longer. I don't know if it's true, but I do this anyway just to be safe.
I would recommend anyone who is sending out Amiga disks on HD floppies to send two copies of each one, just in case one develops an error and is useless to the recipient.
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However, a Double-Density-formatted High-Density disk is more susceptible to data integrity issues and can develop read errors over time, sometimes even after a few uses. These errors don't seem to be physical, so the disks themselves aren't damaged once the errors develop and you can usually rewrite the disk back from the ADF or DMS image and it will work fine again for a while. Some people say that if you write the image to the disk twice or three times first it stays on there longer. I don't know if it's true, but I do this anyway just to be safe.
I would recommend anyone who is sending out Amiga disks on HD floppies to send two copies of each one, just in case one develops an error and is useless to the recipient.
Good point Cammy! That's true.
I don't have direct experience of loss of data (I'm lucky enough to have a good backup of DS/DD disks, even if second hand ones), but data on HD disks shall be written with a stronger magnetic field by the drive head.
This is not the case if you use a double density drive, or a high density drive with the "tape trick".
Just a little fast link to check: (no Amiga related)
http://indra.com/~cliffcan/01fdd1.htm
----- excerpt from page ------------
HD Diskette Risk - Lost Data!
You may say "I have been able to use an HD disk and everything works fine." The real question is - "How long will the data stay on the disk?"
In order to squeeze twice as much data on the same 3.5" disk, changes were made in both the disk drive and media (diskette). HD media is harder to magnetize and demagnetize (erase). HD drives are designed to handle this, but the DD drive in your 01 isn't. A DD drive uses a weaker magnetic field to record the data, and an HD disk may not store that data as long as a DD disk would.
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P.S. Hope you had nice Halloween :) it wasn't my case... not a good beer, much probably, made me pass the night through a bad nightmare! ...maybe it's due to Halloween :-D
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No, I got your point. I was kind of joking.
But seriously, it didn't take me too long to figure out, all I needed to do was keep a spare "program.info" file that I could copy and rename (using the shell or the GUI file manager program I had).
I admit, it felt like there were a few things missing for the 1.x WBs.
But with a GUI file manager, it wasn't a problem.
It was nicer tho when those were built in in the 2.x/3.x versions.
desiv
Yes I should have figured you were joking based upon your smilies :)
I guess all AmigOS 1.3 users had to come up with various workarounds like the one you mention here.
I can't believe some of you guys are ripping on OS 1.3! lol
It was quite fine for what it was back in the day, plus we had a shell (as others have pointed out), unlike Mac's at the time AND other filemanagers were readily available, even though I never had a real need for 'em.
To those that be hating Workbench 1.3, try using an early Atari ST sometime with its TOS and GEM - talk about a near worthless barebones stripped OS ;)
And I totally agree with you :)
Just to be crystal clear here, I don't hate WB 1.3, neither do I think it's bad either, it's just that 2.x & 3.x was sooo much better. But it's true, back in the day 1.3 was all we had, and we somehow managed with that as well.
Another thing is that although Workbench 1.3 is ugly as hell with the blue and orange colors, I think it still has a certain charm, and I even created a Winamp skin inspired by WB 1.3 a couple of years ago.
Here is a grab of the skin:
(http://rhz1.site88.net/pictures/AmigaOS13-skin_grab.png)
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I don't have direct experience of loss of data (I'm lucky enough to have a good backup of DS/DD disks, even if second hand ones), but data on HD disks shall be written with a stronger magnetic field by the drive head.
This is not the case if you use a double density drive, or a high density drive with the "tape trick".
I might also add that using a HD floppy as DD works best if the disk has never been formatted before, but sadly the majority of disks sold for the last ten years or so have been pre-formatted by the manufacturer.
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Well I guess since all I have is HD disks I get to make lots of backups of my Workbench Disk. And just to keep you guys informed its still in the mail it should be here by the end of the week hope my drive still works. I have read that if I want to use a standard pc floppy drive I just have to switch 2 of the wires. Is this true and would you recomend doing it on the drive or the cable.
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Well I guess since all I have is HD disks I get to make lots of backups of my Workbench Disk. And just to keep you guys informed its still in the mail it should be here by the end of the week hope my drive still works. I have read that if I want to use a standard pc floppy drive I just have to switch 2 of the wires. Is this true and would you recomend doing it on the drive or the cable.
This still will not allow you use the drive as high density. The "real" Amiga HD disk drives run at half speed to allow them to work. After market drives (such as the Power XL drives) use a software patch that allows them to work.
The best thing you can add to your A500 is a hard drive! Hard drives that sit on the side also allow memory upgrades.
Sorry for the crossed wires today. The offer is still open though...
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This still will not allow you use the drive as high density. The "real" Amiga HD disk drives run at half speed to allow them to work. After market drives (such as the Power XL drives) use a software patch that allows them to work.
The best thing you can add to your A500 is a hard drive! Hard drives that sit on the side also allow memory upgrades.
Sorry for the crossed wires today. The offer is still open though...
Thats about what I figured, atleast it still gives me an option if my drive is dead, its been sitting for a long time.
and no problem man
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It's very unlikely that your drive is dead, but it could be dirty, which will also cause read errors. A lot of my old Amigas had trouble reading disks until I cleaned the drives out using one of those floppy drive cleaning kits. Everyone with a classic Amiga should get one of these before they're not available anymore:
http://cgi.ebay.com/3-5-Floppy-disk-drive-cleaner-clean-disc-kit-PC-mac-NEW-/290488887434?pt=PCC_Drives_Storage_Internal&hash=item43a27ca88a
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What part of Maryland do you live, I would love to have a get together with some Amiga people in the tristate area. I live in frederick and could/would like to meet some fellow Amiga people in a Denny's maybe. Sent me a e mail if any one wants to start a local group? Bigbronc@aol.com (Bigbronc@aol.com)
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I doubt your floppy drive is broken, maybe just some "little" problems.
One common is this one:
http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=55020
it's explained why and how to solve (the long way - mine :) - and the fast easy way!)
By!
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Thank you for all of the great tips my disk still hasn't arrived yet but its on its way. Do you have any more good tips for someone starting out with amigas.
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Cammy hit it - to many people forget about cleaning the drives. Use a cleaning disk with alcohol every week to every month, depending how much you use the drives. Cleaning disks can still be found on eBay, usually.
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Maybe the cleaning kit will work for a while, but it's better
to open the diskdrive and remove all the dust inside.
You'll be suprised how much dust gets in there after time!
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Maybe the cleaning kit will work for a while, but it's better
to open the diskdrive and remove all the dust inside.
You'll be suprised how much dust gets in there after time!
True, this should be done every now and then too. BUT, the bigger problem is oxides that transfer from the disks to the heads over time. This is why a solvent is needed. The same problem existed on tape machines (reel to reel and cassette).
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Well I guess since all I have is HD disks I get to make lots of backups of my Workbench Disk. And just to keep you guys informed its still in the mail it should be here by the end of the week hope my drive still works. I have read that if I want to use a standard pc floppy drive I just have to switch 2 of the wires. Is this true and would you recomend doing it on the drive or the cable.
Hi,
On those HD disks, I have been using masking tape over the left hole on the HD disks to get better copies, and yes I know that the ferrous material on the HD disks is denser than the DD disks, this causes what is called magnetic cross talk because of the denser magnetic material on the HD disks, this is counter acted by the heads being stronger and creating a higher magnetic flux signal to write to the HD disks, but I find that a piece of tape works just as well and I don't have to cross any wires or jump through hoops to record on a HD disk. Now you can switch the two wires, but now you also have to compensate for the speed of the drive, and also have to move a jumper, I believe if you go to aminet, you can find the total instruction pak on how to add a HD floppy drive to your Amiga 1200. Now for all you wimpy people that are complaining about OS 1.3 as compared to OS 3.1, how many of you Amiga experts ever used (or heard of) Amiga OS 1.0, better yet how many of ya have a copy? talk about sparse, but it was really great to use compared to msDOS 1.0.
CPM 1.0 anyone?
Oh I know what is that?
Have fun enjoy your Amiga's, and don't forget Piru is good but Karlos is better. (I think).
smerf