Booting A1200 from Zip/Jazz drive possible??

[Amiduffer]

Is it possible to boot my Ami1200 from a Iomega Zip/Jazz drive?

I'm trying to figure a way around this dead IDE interface on my 1200, and I remember a lot of years back, the guy who ran the Amiga Crossing store in Southern Maine would boot his A1200 off a Zip drive to play XCom.

So how the heck would I go about setting up a Zip disk to do that?? I really miss my ImageFX!

Amiduffer

[Amiduffer]

Well, all I have available to me is:

Blizzard 68040/50mhz without SCSI interface
SquirrelSCSI, which I'm not sure is bootable from.

Your instruction were a little difficult to follow, but I'll try them.

Amiduffer

[Amiduffer]

Oh no, it's not an IDE Zip drive, it's the external model, and I haven't hooked it up yet, I got home too late last night to bother doing anything except collapse on the bed.

It's got a standard 25pin cable that came with it and a bunch of disks. Doing these kind of things makes me nervous.

For the curious, which should I hook it to? Directly to the SquirrelSCSI or to the Parallel port?


Amiduffer

[Amiduffer]

Matt_H wrote:
First thing to do is confirm if it's a parallel port version or a SCSI version. Connecting it to the wrong port can't be good either for it, or the Amiga.

The SCSI model should have 2 25pin ports on the back. I think one says "zip" and the other has a picture of the SCSI symbol - an arrow pointing inside a square rotated about 45°

I think it's a parallel (check, looking online, I can confirm it's a parallel) port version, it has the 2 25pin ports on the back, but one one of them has a printer symbol and "printer" above it, which I would assume would be to connect to the parallel port, and then to the printer. I'm surprised they would make those kinds of different systems.

Does that mean it won't work for me?

Amiduffer

[Amiduffer]

MarkAshley wrote:
Yes it will work. You have to build an interface which connects to the parallel port in order to make it work. Go to aminet and search for ppazip to find the details.

Once you have built the interface and got your zip drive working, you can do what I suggested in my first post (using a boot floppy to boot from the zip disk).

Mark

Hell's bells. That would be pretty wild if I could finangle something like that together. I'll check it out, I got nothing else to lose, except a doorstop that looks like an Amiga1200.

Amiduffer

[Amiduffer]

Well, this will be a little tricky...

The only way I've gotten files off the Aminet is to use the office PC, save it on a 720k IBMformated disk, and use crossdos to then transfer it to my Ami. That's when I had a HD. I have currently, only my 3.1 WB disks to boot up with, and for the life of me, can't remember where CrossDos was or how I got it. Didn't CrossDos come included with 3.1??

I this doesn't work, could someone mail me an Amiga formated disk with the ppazip program and files unpacked, I'll send you a $ for your troubles.

Amiduffer

[Amiduffer]

Doh! All you had to do was look in the instruction manual, and there's a whole chapter on crossdos.

Guess I'll give it a look tonight!! I've got the disk and the file off aminet so here's crossing my fingers \/

Amiduffer

[Amiduffer]

AAAAAAAAAAHHHHH Crap! The crossdos isn't functioning! Gad!! So damn close.

I put the PC0/PC1 into the proper directory, clicked on em, and it says they're mounted, but, a PCdisk I've used before to transfer files isn't showing up, or even a DOS5 boot disk that i've used with PCTask isn't showing up. I must be missing something!!  

Any ideas?

Amiduffer

[Amiduffer]

quote]
MarkAshley wrote:
1. Did you put CrossDOSFileSystem in L:?
2. Is the diskette double density?
3. If yes to 1 and 2, try putting a diskette in the drive then formatting PC0:. In my experience, formatting on the PC doesn't work with CrossDOS, I always have to format it on the Amiga first.[/quote]

Uhhhhhhhhhhh.

I'm not sure about CDFS in L:, I'll get back to you on that Everything used to be automated on my HD, so that all I had to do was click on a menu choice, now, it's like the old days of my A1000, lots of disk swapping.

yes, the disk is DD.

[Amiduffer]

YeeeeeHAAAAA!! One hurtle cleared! I put CrossDOSFilesystem in L: and BAM! the disk showed up, just like it should.

BUT!!!

Trying to unpack that sucker turned out to be a major hassle. LHA did'nt seem to want to unpack the files. It would state that it was successful, and no files would be unpacked. Then after ALL sorts of combinations, it finally spit them out.

And looking at the diagrams, it doesn't look too bad. I just have to find a joystick connector, a box for the parallel connector, wire, and some time. Apparently, if you hook the wires wrong, you can kill the CIA chip, so I want to be very carefull.

Then I have to, somehow, cram the three driver files into my already (nearly full) workbench disk. I guess some files will have have to get voted off the island.

But, the moral to be learned, is, where on the planet, can you run an operating system off a 780k diskette? I think you know the answer

Amiduffer

[Amiduffer]

Yeeeaaaahhhhh, well done  :-)

I've got my miggy all set up again now so I'll have a look at the schematic tomorrow and see if there's any hints I can offer.

Thanks. I'll need a little help in translating the schematic into amiduffer.

For instance, it lists
                       1-8 (zip drive pins)
                        0
                        |
                        |
                        0
                       1-8 (Parallel port pins)

Does that mean that you connect 1-1, 2-2, 3-3, etc.

Amiduffer

[Amiduffer]

MarkAshley wrote:
I assume you're looking at buff.iff and nobuf.iff.

Yes where you have 2-9 on the Amiga side and 2-9 on the Zip side, that means pins 2 - 9 are connected straight through from the Amiga to the Zip drive.

I don't know whether you need the buffered or unbuffered version. If you're able to, I would build the buffered version just in case the unbuffered doesn't work.

Ok, I'll give it a try, if you can help me decipher the schematic. The unbuffered version is about enough for my skill level, but the buffered version is something I've never attempted to try before. It's the kind of language I haven't got the hang of yet. I assume I'll have to pay a visit to Radio Shack soon. As soon as I get the stuff together, let's put it together  :hammer:

Amiduffer

[Amiduffer]

Man, I really scammed out on some parts at Weird Stuff Warehouse in Sunnyvale. It's geek heaven. If you're in Silicon Valley, it's worth a visit, I even saw a A2000/Toaster for sale there once. Now I just need to go find the buffer chip and capacitor.

Now a have a few other questions about the schematic.

from Par18-25-------------18-25Zip right below, both the capacitor and buffer chip are connected from Par14, my question is, do you have to connect the Cap. & Chip to each of the wires 18-25

and
 
Par     5  6      Zip
11-----|>-------16
Par     3  4
12-----|>-------1
Par     1  2
13-----|>-------17

Joy     9  8
6 -----|>-------14

what do the right pointing triangles symbolize and the purpose of the numbers to the left and right above them. That's about it. Thanks for your time.

Amiduffer

[Amiduffer]

Ok, thanks for all this help. This shouldn't be so bad once I can actually get some time to GET the materials and put them together. :inquisitive: It looks like a fun project.

I hope I can borrow my friends digital camera so I can post a picture of the final product.

[Amiduffer]

The treasure hunt was partially successfull! :banana:

I located:

Jumper Box
D25 plug
D25 socket
D9 plug
1uF capacitator

None of the Radio Sacks in Oakland had buffer chips or DIL sockets. A couple of electronic stores in Berkeley were recomended, and hopefully, I'll be able to be able to spend a little time up there. Wish me luck. :-)