FASTEST,EAYSIEST,CHEAPEST WAY TO TRANSFER ADF IMAGES BETWEEN PC AND AMIGA(mostly 500)

[AmigaBruno]

I've bought one of these kits and first of all, I must say that it arrived in the UK from Greece only 2.5 days after I ordered it one night, beating orders of other items from UK sellers made on the same night! I've transferred a load of games and applications onto Amiga floppy disks, including various software I've never used before. It's been great!

Unfortunately, this kit can be a bit temperamental. I've already had and solved one problem, which was actually caused by some ADF files available online being too large, although this happened after I accidentally unplugged the transfer cable from the Amiga while it was switched off, but the PC was still turned on. These files were 891K, instead of 880K. They included Assassins games compilations from the website Back 2 the Roots. After this, the Amiga Paradise software kept complaining about the wrong file length and aborting the file transfers. I found out that this also affected other files of 880K, which had their lengths increased to 891K. The solution was to rename a file called temp.adf which was 891K and in the ADF transfer directory. I then deleted it.  

A new development is that I moved my Amiga from a small table onto a computer desk which I've just got. After doing this, I tried another file transfer and suddenly got the message "Time out - No answer. Retrying...". I noticed that the transfer cable had fallen out of the back of the Amiga, probably while it was turned on! I turned off the Amiga and PC, reconnected the cable to the Amiga, turned both computers on and tried again. Unfortunately, since then, no matter what I've tried, including re installation of ADF transfer, different ADF images, trying to transfer from Amiga to PC instead of from PC to Amiga, running from the Windows command prompt, all I ever get is the message "Time out - No answer. Retrying..."! I tried to run the 64bit version of the program, but this just confirmed that my Windows XP Professional installation is a 32 bit version, although my PC is 64bit. I think my next step will be to uninstall the installation of ADF transfer I was using, before I re installed it again, then wipe the original downloaded zip archive and use a fresh version of the download. This is because it never appears on the Start menu and I have to navigate to the directory Downloads, then to the program's own directory. In spite of this, it was working before, but stopped all of a sudden just after the transfer cable fell out of the back of the Amiga. There are no screws to hold these plugs in place, otherwise I don't think this would have happened. I really hope this is just a software problem and that I haven't damaged my Amiga parallel port! If all of this fails to work, then I'll finally install the PCI parallel card I bought with this software. Unfortunately, I don't know enough to check the transfer cable pins and I haven't got anything else I can plug into my Amiga parallel port to check it.

I hope to be able to report that it's all working again in the near future. Meanwhile, at least I can play some RPGs I never got round to in the past and study some raytracing using AmigaBASIC and compiled programs which I transferred using this kit.

[AmigaBruno]

I don't recall off-hand if the CIA chips affect parallel port operation, but you might try swapping those and see if anything changes?

I remember that they do, because I investigated years ago, then thought that my printer wasn't working any more, because of some problem I had with a NewTek video digitiser, but after replacing the chip, it didn't get my printer working again. Only replacing the printer cable solved the problem, although that cable worked on someone else's printer. I don't know if swapping the CIA chips round is a good idea, though.

Anyway, after doing nearly everything with the software which I listed in my last post, all that's left is to plug in the PCI parallel port, but I'm not looking forward to unscrewing the PC case, which looks like a difficult one!

[AmigaBruno]

The side of the PC case just needed to be prised or slided open while pressing a button. I've fitted the PCI card, then found I immediately got the message "ERROR Resource Conflict PCI Slot 04 BUS 0B Device 05 Function 00" while booting up. I pressed F2 to try and set it up. I had no real idea what to do, except look for PCI, so definitely not Plug and Play. I changed the PCI IRQ to almost every value available from the menu, but the error message above still came up, no matter value I chose, apart from IRQ14, which resulted in the system freezing during boot. I was then lucky to get back into the BIOS setup after several attempts, and finally changed the setting back to Auto, then saved and exited. In all attempts I was setting the first item on the list, as I had no instructions on what to do. After all this, I didn't try setting it to IRQ15, the only value left on the list.

Of course, as you may have guessed, the end result of this was the message "Time out - No answer. Retrying...", no matter what I tried to do. I hope the seller of this kit or someone on here can tell me how to solve this.

[AmigaBruno]

Unless the cable got damaged when it was pulled out, I'd suggest you test your parallel port on the Amiga. Have an old printer lying around or anything?

If you're using the parallel port card that came with the kit you'll need the drivers from the website for it.  IRQ settings sound like maybe your motherboard is too old to support it though?

All that has happened which may have caused all this trouble AFAIK is that the cable fell out of the Amiga parallel port while both computers were switched on. I have read the documentation about troubleshooting. It was working before this happened. Of course, I downloaded the drivers from the seller's site which also contains 32 and 64 bit versions of the ADF transfer software. AFAIK I have installed these drivers through the Windows found new hardware wizard. I told it to include the relevant directory in the search for drivers. After this, Windows has reported and is still reporting that it's found two multifunction devices, which seem to be this same PCI card, because I haven't fitted anything else except a new mouse, which is the same make and model as the old mouse, but I plugged it into a different USB port. I don't know how old this PC is, because I bought it from eBay last year. It's called a Fujutsu Siemens Esprimo and has a 64bit AMD CPU. Windows XP Professional was pre installed and I haven't set up any additional accounts such as Administrator, but the default account seems to have Administrator privileges and when I used the Command Prompt (MS-DOS) to try and get access to more settings under Paradise it said I was the Administrator.

Unfortunately, I have nothing else that I can plug into the Amiga parallel port. I think that if I don't get this sorted out myself, then I can get someone at Amiga North Thames group to diagnose the fault on April 14. I've seen one of them making modifications to Amiga motherboards and he had a look at my clock battery, which wasn't leaking.

So basically, whether or not this has caused the problem, these plugs should be supplied with screws to hold them in, but I don't know exactly what type of screws.

I've only just noticed that the seller has replied, so I'll reply to him ASAP.

[AmigaBruno]

AmigaBruno, i'm sorry to hear that you have these problems, but since you already made a lot of successful transfers, i don't think that the problems you encounter can possibly caused by  the cable or software.
After what you told us, i've update the ebay listing putting the warning note i already had  (about having both pc and amiga turned off before connecting cable) to a  much more visible place,and adding never to unplug cable when amiga is  turned on, just to be "on safe side"!
Now about the holding screws,maybe you are right that i should put them too, but i assume there was no need to put these, as in most cases, someone will have  the cable connected only when he make transfers, so  screwing/unscrewing  on both ends,every time he needs to make some transfers, (screwing only on amiga side,doesn't prevent  the possibility of unplugging on pc side, so both connectors need to be screwed),  is a rather tedious task that no one would do!
Moreover, the 25pin Dsub connector fits very tight on both amigas and pc parallel ports i've tested, so i never thought this would happen to anyone.
I really hope that parallel port is not damaged, although i believe that damage will possibly be made in the "opposite" case of yours, e.g. connecting the parallel cable while BOTH pc and amiga are turned on (although i personally, unplug/plug cable many times when only amiga is off and everything seems to works fine!).

p.s. Since you bought the kit with the pci parallel card, try to use it too, and see if it works. Drivers can be found here . The specific pci card has been tested with my pc and works perfect!

The Amiga parallel plug is very loose on my Amiga A500 Plus, which is why it fell out.

As I said above, I have plugged in the PCI parallel card, but can't get it to work.

Further details are that my BIOS is a Phoenix cME FirstBIOS Desktop Pro, Copyright 1985-2006 Phoenix and Copyright 2003-2006 Fujitsu Siemens. It's causing a conflict with the original parallel port and needs its IRQ or something else to be set, or the original parallel port to be disabled. This is at the BIOS level before any operating system has loaded. Of course, this is because it's a PC. An Amiga would just auto configure. I even tried changing the port address in the ADF transfer software to AD00 like in your graphic, but it didn't make any difference. I don't know anything else I can do except plug the PCI card into the only other free slot, but I doubt that would work either. How can I stop the PCI card from conflicting?

Of course, I've been doing all the transfers and attempts at more transfers using Windows. I have also got Ubuntu Linux, but this software won't run under that system, not even using WINE.

[AmigaBruno]

Changing the pci slot is a good practice to solve an irq conflict on old motherboards.
Also, old bios usually offer 2 or 3 alternative settings for the on board parallel port. If i remember correctly something like 378h or 278h. The default usually is 378h, try to change this with bios and see if this resolves the conflict.

I've now tried changing the BIOS settings to 278h, but that didn't work. I also tried changing all other BIOS settings I could think of which may be connected with it. The conflict and the same old error message still remain.

All that's left to try now is plugging the PCI card into the only other empty PCI slot. I'll let you know how I get on.

[AmigaBruno]

I've finally got round to unplugging the PCI card and plugging it into the only other spare slot.

The result of this is that the conflict has been resolved and Windoze has installed the drivers for the PCI parallel card as well as the multifunction device, which is PCI LPT!!!!

All that's left is to connect the Amiga and PC parallel ports together. Unfortunately, someone has been helping me to tidy up my flat and it looks like a small tornado has hit it! When I manage to connect the parallel ports together, then I'll tell you whether or not they work.

[AmigaBruno]

Finally, some good news! The ADF transfer kit is working again!!

The bad news is I don't know why it's working again. :crazy:

After installing the new PCI parallel port, I found I couldn't get it to work with this transfer kit.

What eventually worked was plugging the cable into the PC motherboard parallel port, setting the port address to $0378 (a new address of $4000 had appeared on the menu), booting the Amiga from the Paradise floppy disk in df1: with the disk write protected and having the disk to download onto in df0: . I have only ever transferred onto disks in df0: because that's the default and it worked. I don't know how to change this to  df1: or dh0: . I've recently bought a hard drive from eBay, but I haven't got it yet.

I only had one floppy disk left to copy stuff onto, but this gave an error message something like "Can't write. Please replace volume Workbench 1.3 into any drive". This error only comes up with certain software. After getting this error tonight with the ZXAM Spectrum emulator, I managed to transfer Arkanoid onto the same floppy disk, with no error messages at all.

So, to sum up, although this kit is very useful, it's also very temperamental, and I think we should have a topic on here where everyone gives details of anything that stops it from working and how they managed to get it working again.

[AmigaBruno]

Finally, some good news! The ADF transfer kit is working again!!

The bad news is I don't know why it's working again. :crazy:

After installing the new PCI parallel port, I found I couldn't get it to work with this transfer kit.

What eventually worked was plugging the cable into the PC motherboard parallel port, setting the port address to $0378 (a new address of $4000 had appeared on the menu), booting the Amiga from the Paradise floppy disk in df1: with the disk write protected and having the disk to download onto in df0: . I have only ever transferred onto disks in df0: because that's the default and it worked. I don't know how to change this to  df1: or dh0: . I've recently bought a hard drive from eBay, but I haven't got it yet. :confused:

I only had one floppy disk left to copy stuff onto, but this gave an error message something like "Can't write. Please replace volume Workbench 1.3 into any drive". This error only comes up with certain software. After getting this error tonight with the ZXAM Spectrum emulator, I managed to transfer Arkanoid onto the same floppy disk, with no error messages at all. :laugh1:

So, to sum up, although this kit is very useful, it's also very temperamental, and I think we should have a topic on here where everyone gives details of anything that stops it from working and how they managed to get it working again. :confused:

[AmigaBruno]

I'm using one of these.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Amiga-500-1000-2000-3000-Floppy-Simulator-w-MPDOS-Pro-/321096932559?_trksid=p2047675.l2557&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEWNX%3AIT&nma=true&si=YTYHs8bhtECmFxprwITbDOEF3mc%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc

The neat part is that its transparent to the Amiga.

So, this cable connects to a PC and allows Amiga users to use a PC as a server or peripheral. The bad news is that it plugs into your internal floppy drive interface. The same seller also has another cable, which can also be used with an Atari 8 bit computer, but that connects to a joystick port.

[AmigaBruno]

Amazingly enough, my Amiga A500 GVP HD8+ SCSI hard drive unit with 42Mb Quantum drive fitted has just arrived only 3 days after I won the eBay auction! The item details said it has Workbench 2.0 already installed.

I'd really like to be able to transfer some ADF files directly onto this drive, but my supplied Amiga autoboot Paradise software disk is set up to copy these files onto df0: . It just boots up, then says it's establishing a connection, but never says that it has connected. Resetting by pressing ESC, then Return doesn't give me any prompt which enables me to change the drive to any other drive. Can someone tell me the easiest way to do it? I'll also need to read up on and install WHDload.

[AmigaBruno]

You're about to move beyond the ADF transfer kit at this point.  The easiest thing for you to do now is to pick up a cheap external CD drive that plugs into the SCSI port on the GVP unit, then when you need to transfer files just burn them onto CD with your PC.  

It took me about 4 months to get some kind of hard drive device like this because I haven't got all that much money at the moment and I just couldn't afford it. I bought this one a day after being beaten in a similar auction right at the end. I was determined not to be beaten again and even had to raise my bid at the end, while in the middle of watching some sci fi. At the moment I'm worried about not being able to have a social life this weekend or next, as well as paying for my broadband, cable TV and landline phone. I still need to check the figures for my budget, though. I often used to use Personal Finance Manager on my old Amigas and it may be a good idea to start using it again.

After plugging in and using my new old hard drive unit, I was shocked to find that only 10Mb of the 42Mb drive space remained! I immediately started worrying about if I could even fit the Lattice C compiler, which I think has 6 ADF files, onto the remaining space. I've recently been reading the 2 Abacus/Data Becker books about C programming and they seem to make sense to me! It looks like I should replace this hard drive or fit a second one via SCSI, but I'm not sure if it would be an external drive with its own case, an internal one fitted externally, or an internal drive which I can somehow fit internally into this unit. After this shock, I was pleasantly surprised looking at some of the RAM usage figures from one of the menus in Personal Paint, as well as looking at the figures on the menu bar of my Workbench screen. After some calculations to check everything, it seems I now have 3Mb RAM instead of the previous 1Mb RAM. This is although the eBay listing said it have no RAM fitted. The Deluxe Paint animation "Cry", now runs, but there's still a problem with the GFA BASIC "Pogo Sprites" program, which I ran once or in one session several times, while loading and running all the examples, but ever since then it's refused to run, saying the program is too long, or there's not enough RAM. It seems to me that the GFA menus have somehow changed since my first session, but I'm not sure.

To sum up, I'm not even going to bid on any external CD SCSI drives for at least a week from now, and when I do, I don't know how long it will take for me to succeed and actually get one. This is why I'd like to know how to change the Paradise default setting of saving to df0: to dh0: or if that's even possible for all the software I may try to do that with. I think I may have to change this at the PC end, but I'm not sure. I don't want to go for about another 2 weeks with my ADF transfer kit not working again! Another problem is that a shop on my doorstep has now stopped selling floppy disks. I've found 10 left over from several years ago, which I may be able to use after I check they're blank or what's on them. I hope I can find a shop that sells them, instead of having to wait for more to arrive from eBay.

[AmigaBruno]

After all I've been through not being able to do transfers for about 2 weeks, last night I got the same old error message about not being connected and retrying!!!!  This means I'm currently not able to do any more ADF transfers. :destroy:

First of all, I asked myself what had changed since the Arkanoid ADF transfer. The answer was that I fitted a GVP hard drive. Of course, I disabled it so I could boot from the Paradise floppy disk, but that wasn't enough. I then disconnected the hard drive, but that made no difference. Neither did changing the port address or using the new PCI parallel port.

My theory is that any little change can somehow reset the parallel ports connection, turning it off. This happens at the PC side, where the console messages appear, but on the Amiga side the floppy disk just says "Establishing connection..." I think I now need to explore absolutely everything to do with the Paradise software to overcome this. I hope it doesn't take me another 2 weeks. I'd appreciate any suggestions.

[AmigaBruno]

Good news! I've got the ADF transfer kit working again.

I reread the documentation and it seems that it's very important in what order you do things. I ran the Paradise software on the Amiga first and inserted a blank Amiga floppy disk before running the ADF transfer software on the PC.

I used my original parallel port with the address of 0x378. I was able to transfer the set of 4 ADF files which make up the Aztec C v5 compiler. I managed to install these onto my hard drive as well. Unfortunately, the compiler keeps generating various error messages, such as multiple input files and can't find various include files which are where the configuration file aztec.sh says they are. This means I haven't managed to produce an executable C program yet, only object files.