Stupid Amiga Tricks...

[EDanaII]

While, ummm... "evangalizing" over on Commodore-Amiga.org, I got to thinking about some of the reasons why I still remain a fan of the Amiga computer and remembered some of the slick things I used to be able with the machine. I started this thread over there, but thought it would also be fun to start it here as well.

23 years ago, I was playing around and experimenting with my A1000 and after studying the DOS commands I wondered if it was possible to run my Amiga from a recoverable ram disk. So, using only the AmigaDOS manual, I decided to do some tinkering. First, the ramdisk that was stored in the MountList file was a little small to run Workbench 1.3 in, so I expanded it. Didn't need a manual for this, I just simply studied the mountlist and was easily able to figure out how to do this.

Next, I simply issued these DOS commands:

Code: [Select]


MOUNT RAD:
COPY SYS: RAD: ALL QUIET
ASSIGN SYS: RAD:


Then I just rebooted my machine and "Viola!" I'm running in ram and a hell of a lot faster than normal.

Now, I know you can do this in Linux and Windows, but I'll bet you it's a lot harder to figure out.

Another interesting trick, that I was unaware of but found on Wikipedia:

Code: [Select]


INFO >SPEAK:


So, got any stupid Amiga tricks that demonstrate how remarkable this machine was? Feel free to contribute. Don't limit yourself to DOS if you have a few other tricks.

Post your tricks here, or if you like, pop over to Commodore-Amiga.org and post them there. Gives us some examples of what made the Amiga computer so remarkable.

[Kesa]

I've been working on an act recently with my Amiga. I'm teaching it how to ride a unicycle while juggling 3 balls. It's coming along nicely...   :hat:

[EDanaII]

Eh... if you're Amiga can do that, it's anything BUT stupid.

Continuing my little "crusade" on why I prefer the AmigaOS over other OSes, here's something I do currently on my emulated Amigas. For starters, I maintain multiple drives, as with the standard Amiga emulation, I have a System drive and a Work drive. In addition to that, I maintain a Development (Devl) drive for software development.

Because I maintain separate drives, I maintain different software configurations. System software should be obvious, although it varies from which emulated Amiga I boot: 1.3 - 3.9, Amikit, etc... Work, however, is often shared between the various versions. This presents a problem, as my user startup is located on my system drive.

I solve this problem by simply adding this code to any user-startup for my system:

Code: [Select]

IF Exists Work:s
    LIST >T:Work-Startup Work:s/#?-startup LFORMAT="EXECUTE %P%N"
    Execute T:Work-Startup
ENDIF

IF Exists Devl:s
    LIST >T:Devl-Startup Devl:s/#?-startup LFORMAT="EXECUTE %P%N"
    Execute T:Devl-Startup
ENDIF

I maintain an 's' directory on each of those drives and within it I locate startup-sequences required by the software stored on that particular drive. This way I don't get errors like "Volume: not found" and I can include (or not) the drive as I need it.

I can find a similar solution in Linux that looks something like this:

Code: [Select]

while read line;
    do run -sh $line;
done <<< `ls -d */ `

One can make arguments that the Linux version is just as effective as the Amiga version, but I'll admit my prejudice and ask if anyone can move their software from drive to drive as easily.

[runequester]

don't know how unique this is, as hard drive sizes make it less relevant, but I have gotten pretty used to downloading files to RAM, and then unpacking them to a location on the hard drive.
 
Ditto for cache files for web browsing. (which has the advantage of speeding up the old girl on the web too)
 
In the windows/mac world,the idea of screens would be pretty unique, particularly swapping back and forth effortlessly. In linux, this is covered of course.

[nicholas]

Code: [Select]

MOUNT RAD:
COPY SYS: RAD: ALL QUIET
ASSIGN SYS: RAD:


If you create an LZX archive of your sys: partition, you can change the second line to unpack the archive to RAD: as it's a darn site quicker than copying the whole filesystem contents.

You can have multiple OS "personalities" this way and create a menu that runs from S:s-s on cold boot to choose which one you want.

[EDanaII]

Hmmm... Good tip. I'll have to give that a try one of these days. When I first tried it, 1.3 (I believe) was first out so I don't think LZX was available back then. Could be wrong though...

For the other "trick" I tried to do it like this:

Code: [Select]

C:Mount >NIL: DEVS:DOSDrivers/~(#?.info)
but, apparently, the EXECUTE statement doesn't do that. Would have been pretty nice (and consistant) if it did. Still, that kind of flexibility is still one of the things that make Amiga DOS pretty nice.

[gertsy]

I'm trying to teach my old A500 to tell dad jokes via the voice synth. It makes them 10 times funnier.

[djnick]

While, ummm... "evangalizing" over on Commodore-Amiga.org, I got to thinking about some of the reasons why I still remain a fan of the Amiga computer and remembered some of the slick things I used to be able with the machine. I started this thread over there, but thought it would also be fun to start it here as well.

23 years ago, I was playing around and experimenting with my A1000 and after studying the DOS commands I wondered if it was possible to run my Amiga from a recoverable ram disk. So, using only the AmigaDOS manual, I decided to do some tinkering. First, the ramdisk that was stored in the MountList file was a little small to run Workbench 1.3 in, so I expanded it. Didn't need a manual for this, I just simply studied the mountlist and was easily able to figure out how to do this.

Next, I simply issued these DOS commands:

Code: [Select]


MOUNT RAD:
COPY SYS: RAD: ALL QUIET
ASSIGN SYS: RAD:


Then I just rebooted my machine and "Viola!" I'm running in ram and a hell of a lot faster than normal.

Now, I know you can do this in Linux and Windows, but I'll bet you it's a lot harder to figure out.

Another interesting trick, that I was unaware of but found on Wikipedia:

Code: [Select]


INFO >SPEAK:


So, got any stupid Amiga tricks that demonstrate how remarkable this machine was? Feel free to contribute. Don't limit yourself to DOS if you have a few other tricks.

Post your tricks here, or if you like, pop over to Commodore-Amiga.org and post them there. Gives us some examples of what made the Amiga computer so remarkable.

Here are TOP Amiga stuff I couldn`t live without. And I miss them on PC platform:

- DOpusMagellan's OS stuff: call a lister [MyComputer] by simple doubleclicking anywhere on Workbench

- "Copy" files and then "Paste As" - when do pasting as - lister will appear with renaming

- Renaming files in lister by simple click and hold... and then renaming files and names as text list on text editor and moving cursor with arrow keys.

- When open CLI / AmigaSHELL [that is set to look as cool black background with white text] by doubleclicking middle mouse button... SHELL will be opened and then:

* drag directory from lister or opened window and drop to shell will make command line go to that directory
* up/down arrows in CLI will make all typed commands history appear quickly backward/forward
* no need to type CD to go to directory... just type directory name
* type first letter and hit TAB and Shell will display all commands that begins with that letter [! still amazing!]
* on empty shell, hit TAB and it will open classic lister to choose directory with mouse and simple enter will go there. No need to type commands and go to wanted directories.
* CTRL+SHIFT+LMButton will open COPY/PASTE text and part of the typed text in Shell.
* RAmiga+V will paste any text to Shell
* Shell has history slider!
* I can`t remember how I did it but instead default :> command prompt, I had "Yes Master:" text

- ShutDown system is turning off by simple powerOff

- typing .deldir in opened lister command line will show last 40 deleted files you can simply undelete [still top feature!]

- excellent multitasking

- acting very fast [1995-2001]

- perfect DOpusMagellan toolbars can be customized to call shortcut whatever you want

- reboot was always fast [CTRL+A+A]

- Great tools like PageStream, FinalWriter [I used daily for serious work], Photogenix [with extra cool History on right mouse button], CED [for very fast editing and text conversions by macros], ArtEffects [excellent Photoshop-try clone], CandyFactoryPRO [for creating extra cool text effects that still does not exist in Photoshop CS4]... I loved DrawStudio [for vector art], ProTracker, OctaMED S.S. and DigiBooster for music... Miami and iBrowse for net. I had extremly useful and powerful machine [from 1995 to 1999] that was underground enough, look[ed] cool and acted fast and costed me ~10.000 DeutscheMarks

Those were best times ever and my heart was complete and full

Now I have almost the same feeling when play with iPhone, iPad and all iStuff

[runequester]

a lot of good stuff on your list. The one that I particularly enjoy is the shutdown. Just wait for no disk activity,then cut the power. Nice and easy

[nicholas]

Hmmm... Good tip. I'll have to give that a try one of these days. When I first tried it, 1.3 (I believe) was first out so I don't think LZX was available back then. Could be wrong though...

Any archiver will do, LhA, ZIP etc.....

A certain moderator here does the same trick but uses the BPPC CPU to run a PPC native executable of LZX to unpack the archive of the OS a bazillion times faster.