Essential software?

[TheMaDMaN]

Ok, I realise I might be opening a can of worms here, but what software should I get for my soon-to-be-running-again A4000/040?

System Specs:
CPU: 68040 @ 25MHz (Stock A3640 CPU board)
RAM: 2Mb Chip, 16Mb Fast
HDD: 1Gb IDE
CD-ROM: unknown speed IDE (not yet functional due to not being supported by Workbench 3.0 default install)
OS: Workbench 3.0
Kickstart: 3.0
Expansions: A2088XT Bridgeboard

There is the obvious stuff, like MUI, but what else should I get?  I do want to add the machine to the network and access the internet on it (if only to download straight to the A4K) that is assuming this is possible, and if so what software will I need.  If it is not possible to do it this way, I could always add an external modem and setup a dial-up internet connection, again, what software would I need?

Thanks in advance for answering my perhaps stupid questions.

[TheMaDMaN]

Holley wrote:
A near stock '040 isn't going to blow your socks off, and to get on the internet you're really looking at getting a modem and the netconnect 2 or 3 software bundle.

There's other ways, but they involve spending cash, and it ends up being a money pit.  You can use a serial cable to move stuff to / from PCs, due to the file sizes involved it's not a horribly long winded thing to do.

So what do you want to get out of your Amiga? Games, internet, programming?

Games, Internet, Graphics & animation (editing and creation), Emulation, and the occasional bit of programming...

Oh yeah, I forgot I've got an IDE 100Mb ZIP drive and a few ZIP disks, which I could use for data transfer, if I can get the ZIP drive to work with the A4K, or I could use the DVD burner in the PC to burn CDs, or I could install the 1Gb IDE in the PC and transfer data via WinUAE, so I doubt transferring data to and from the A4K will be a problem...

[TheMaDMaN]

Holley wrote:
For graphics I use ArtEffect4, web browsing AWeb 3.5 beta through Genesis (comes in OS 3.9), games with WHDLoad (bung old floppy games on the harddisk), MakeCD to record CDs and Amiga Writer of writing.  Thats about all I do really, on an A3000 with A3640, 16Mb of fast mem, Cybervision graphics card, XSurf network card.

I've built a fake Amiga using a PC that boots straight into UAE, and to be honest I use it more now.

That 'fake Amiga' does sounds interesting, is it based on UAE running on a version of Linux, or on WinUAE running on top of some version of Windows?

Anyway, back to the original thread question, perhaps I wasn't specific enough.  Which hacks, utilities, datatypes, programs, etc do you find yourself using all the time on your Amiga, and would be things you would download if you had to start from a fresh Workbench install?

I've got going DirOpus 4, DPaint 5, PPaint 7, Photogenics, SnoopDOS, Iconian, Shapeshifter, MagicWB, NewIcons, MUI, ClassAct, IDEFix97 & WHDLoad, are there any other programs I should get?  And what hacks, datatypes, etc would be worth getting?

[TheMaDMaN]

mr_a500 wrote:
OK, here are some utilities I'd say you MUST get - or at least give a try. These are the best I've found after much experimentation:

ABCdir - totally awesome (surprisingly underrated) file manager
Visual Prefs - for customizing total look of Workbench
LoadCMAP - to lock the WB palette so it doesn't stupidly change
DrivePrefs - stop that annoying drive click
ModePro - to promote & modify screens
SimpleFind 3 - the best file finder
DiskSalv 4 - the good disk salvage / undelete tool (hard to find)
Scout - the ultimate system monitor (get ver. 37.249)
Hex - old but good binary editor
ScreenShell - full screen shell (make a double height autoscroll screen with ModePro!)
MuchMore - super smooth scrolling text viewer
Fjpeg - fast jpeg viewer
Visage - nice, fast multi-format image viewer
v41sound.datatype - very nice sound datatype
NISClock - best title clock
PowerSnap - clip text anywhere (almost)
Voodoo-X & xadmaster - extract almost any archive
Zoom - nifty little magnifyer that works on any screen

... and there are lots more like TitleShadow, WindowToFront, Iconify, MFR, VersionWB, DoIcon, RunFromWB, Clip, ASLtoRT.

Perfect, exactly the sort of thing I ws hoping for, thanks!

I'm guessing I can get all of these from Aminet?

[TheMaDMaN]

Chunder wrote:
Nobody seems to have mentioned ImageFX yet... damned powerful image manipulation software - just takes a while to learn the interface.

Oh yeah, I had totally forgot about that.  I've got an old version of that, that was released on a coverdisk years ago, I used to play with it when I first got my A1200HD, but obviously with only 2Mb of RAM (and all of it being chip) back then, I wasn't able to do all that much with it.

Hopefully I've still got those coverdisks, and they still work, if so, I'll probably install it, play around with it and most likely upgrade to the latest version...