Question from an Amiga Newbie - Zip Drives...

[newwaver]

Greetings All,

I have an A500+ with 1mb chipram that I acquired a few years back. I never really fully migrated from my C64 to the Amiga back in the late 90s and know very little about them, but I want to learn more!

I want to have a simple way of getting data (mostly games) back and forth between the Amiga and a PC or Mac. I'd like to avoid and direct connection to a PC. My question is this...

Would having a SCSI Zip 100 Drive hooked up to the Amiga, and a USB Zip 100 Drive hooked up to the PC be a viable and easy way to do this? I've read tidbits here on the forum about this, but I'm still somewhat confused. Would I need a Special driver on the Amiga to be able to read a PC formatted Zip 100 disk?

I know that some UNIX flavors recognize Amiga files systems, is OS X one of them?

Thanks a million!

[tone007]

A500 doesn't have a SCSI adapter built in, so that wouldn't be too easy.

I believe there was a parallel zip drive hack around somewhere, may not be too easy either.

Best bet is a sidecar hard drive with external SCSI interface and maybe a bit of RAM.  Then you can use CDs.

edit: or SCSI Zip drives...

[Amiduffer]

I personally built the parallel Zip Drive hack, which was a fun project. However, the speed of transfer reminded me of the old cassette drives on the C=64.

Your best bet for ease of transfering stuff is a USB drive from Amikit, or one of the sidecar Harddrives and Amiga Explorer/null modem cable.

[tokyoracer]

There is no cheap way of doing this sadly.
The best way is getting an A600 or A1200 with that PCMCIA socket so you can just transfer via CF cards.
Then you can drag the files onto a floppy (on the 1200 of-course) so then you can use it on the 500, though if you got a 1200 then I hardly see the bother or need transfering stuff between them.

[T3000]

There are Zip drives with a parallel interface. Slower than scsi, but cheap.

[amigadave]

Greetings All,

I have an A500+ with 1mb chipram that I acquired a few years back. I never really fully migrated from my C64 to the Amiga back in the late 90s and know very little about them, but I want to learn more!

I want to have a simple way of getting data (mostly games) back and forth between the Amiga and a PC or Mac. I'd like to avoid and direct connection to a PC. My question is this...

Would having a SCSI Zip 100 Drive hooked up to the Amiga, and a USB Zip 100 Drive hooked up to the PC be a viable and easy way to do this? I've read tidbits here on the forum about this, but I'm still somewhat confused. Would I need a Special driver on the Amiga to be able to read a PC formatted Zip 100 disk?

I know that some UNIX flavors recognize Amiga files systems, is OS X one of them?

Thanks a million!

I use ZIP drives and 100mb & 250mb ZIP discs to transfer files between my PC and my Amigas as well as from Amiga to Amiga.  With the small file size for most things on the Amiga, ZIP discs are a very good alternative to MSDOS formatted floppy disks and CrossDOS on the Amiga.  I have both internal and external ZIP drives, all SCSI interface for the Amigas and one ZIP 100mb USB drive and one ZIP 250mb USB/SCSI drive that I use connected to my PC when needed.  If you have a SCSI controller for your A500+, you should be able to find a SCSI ZIP drive somewhere for sale and if you can find the combination ZIP 250mb with both USB & SCSI interfaces, you could use just that one drive for both your PC and your A500+ (except you would need to shut down the Amiga before swapping the drive from the Amiga to the PC).  I can't remember where I got an example ZIP 100mb mount list to use on the Amiga, but if you need it I could post it here, or email it to you.

Since ZIP drives are considered pretty small for any PC work these days, you should be able to get a good price for a used one and 100mb to 250mb is a good size for a bunch of Amiga files.

Good luck,

[newwaver]

What about this approach?

Say I was able to get an IDE sidecar HardDrive for the 500. Shouldn't I be able to plug in one of those IDE to Flash Card adapters and use that to transfer the data back and forth? What considerations would I have to give as far as the data format of the card? Would I need, say, CrossDos on the Amiga?

Thanks again!

[amigadave]

What about this approach?

Say I was able to get an IDE sidecar HardDrive for the 500. Shouldn't I be able to plug in one of those IDE to Flash Card adapters and use that to transfer the data back and forth? What considerations would I have to give as far as the data format of the card? Would I need, say, CrossDos on the Amiga?

Thanks again!

I answered your other thread with the exact same question (not a good idea to post the same question in multiple threads around here), but will give you a different thought here.  The advantage of having two ZIP drives, one connected to your PC and one connected to your Amiga A500+, is that would be the easiest way to transfer files without having to turn off either computer, as you just use it like a very big floppy disk drive and carry the optical ZIP discs from one drive to the other.  It is more expensive, unless you can find the used drives for very cheap (could be possible).  They do make internal IDE ZIP drives (I have one of those in an A4000 which has been put into a tower case), SCSI, Parallel and USB ZIP drives.  The Parallel drives are probably the most common and cheapest to buy and there is a way to use the Parallel model with the Amiga's different Parallel port (see Aminet for directions on how to do it).

The CF adapter to IDE controller idea will work, but the side car would need to be left open if you were going to take out the CF card and place it into your PC to transfer files and you would have to turn off the Amiga every time you removed it.

[pyrre]

I have an A1200 with scsi and zipdrive. and of course i have zip drive in my pc.
I highly recommend it.
On A500 it is a bit more tricky. a sidecar with zorro slots and a HDD controller of some kind. The Buddha Flash phoenix should be able to use IDE zip drives.... should. don't know if anyone have tried it yet....

To find zip drives. have a look at ebay. there they are in vast quantities. and too not so bad prices... Internal SCSI drives are not common, but i have found some...

[Ami_GFX]

I have rescued loads of zip drives from our local recyling center and bought a couple of brand new ones in sealed boxes for under $5 locally and I live way out in the sticks. I have scsi zip drives hooked up to my A2500 and A4000 and a USB zip to my PC and it is very convienent--by far the best way I've found--for transferring files between the two. It would probably be cheaper to buy an A2000 than a Sidecar. On an A2000, zip drives are tricky but possible with an A2091 SCSI controller but they work well with GVP SCSI controllers. I have had no problems with either a GVP 4008 SCSI controller or the Z3 Fastlane I replaced it with on my A4000.

[Tenacious]

Another thought, especially if you're primarily moving files from the PC to the Amiga.  Write the files to a CD.  Get a CDrom drive (like A570) for the A500 to read them.  You could put the OS and apps and games on one CD.  

I think you can make a bootable Amiga CD on a PC but, if not, you can boot with a floppy and then transfer the system to the CD.

[marcfrick2112]

Another thought, especially if you're primarily moving files from the PC to the Amiga.  Write the files to a CD.  Get a CDrom drive (like A570) for the A500 to read them.  You could put the OS and apps and games on one CD.  

I think you can make a bootable Amiga CD on a PC but, if not, you can boot with a floppy and then transfer the system to the CD.

Having a CD on a 500 makes a lot of sense.

Money + availablility will be the main factors. A good SCSI interface for the 500 would be ideal, you could add a Zip, CD drive, etc. As for Zip drives... also ask any computer-owning friends... I was at a buddy's house recently, he replaced his old PowerMac a long time ago... still had a SCSI Zip drive, CIB.... He gave it to me for free.... (It's on my WarpEngine 4000D)

[Fingers]

Say I was able to get an IDE sidecar HardDrive for the 500. Shouldn't I be able to plug in one of those IDE to Flash Card adapters and use that to transfer the data back and forth? What considerations would I have to give as far as the data format of the card? Would I need, say, CrossDos on the Amiga?

You could do that, but;
A: The CF card would need to be formatted as an Amiga HDD, as the Amiga cannot read any PC file systems on an IDE bus.
B: Due to the above, you'd need to use WinUAE to move files to & from the CF card, as the PC cannot read Amiga file systems. That & PCs screw up uncompressed Amiga files.

Here is my suggestion. Buy a Zorro slot sidecar & a Buddha card. Then you can have up to four IDE devices at once. I'm thinking a HDD to install your OS on (plus storage space), then add a CD drive to transfer stuff from the PC

PZ.

[pyrre]

You could do that, but;
A: The CF card would need to be formatted as an Amiga HDD, as the Amiga cannot read any PC file systems on an IDE bus.
B: Due to the above, you'd need to use WinUAE to move files to & from the CF card, as the PC cannot read Amiga file systems. That & PCs screw up uncompressed Amiga files.

Here is my suggestion. Buy a Zorro slot sidecar & a Buddha card. Then you can have up to four IDE devices at once. I'm thinking a HDD to install your OS on (plus storage space), then add a CD drive to transfer stuff from the PC

PZ.

If i am not completely misstaken:
"the Amiga cannot read any PC file systems on an IDE bus"
Yes you can. as long as you have a proper mountlist for the HDD in question. However. you cannot boot from it.

"Here is my suggestion. Buy a Zorro slot sidecar & a Buddha card. Then you can have up to four IDE devices at once. I'm thinking a HDD to install your OS on (plus storage space), then add a CD drive to transfer stuff from the PC"
Why not a zip drive while your at it....

[Fingers]

If i am not completely misstaken:
"the Amiga cannot read any PC file systems on an IDE bus"
Yes you can. as long as you have a proper mountlist for the HDD in question. However. you cannot boot from it.

Really?

"Here is my suggestion. Buy a Zorro slot sidecar & a Buddha card. Then you can have up to four IDE devices at once. I'm thinking a HDD to install your OS on (plus storage space), then add a CD drive to transfer stuff from the PC"
Why not a zip drive while your at it....

Good point.

PZ.