PCMCIA CD-Drive Driver's!

[watcher]

Hi
I have'nt used an Amiga for about 10 Years! But now i thought id get another one as my old A1200 was probably the best computer i ever owned! So i have bought a A1200 from ebay (i havnt actually got it yet!) along with a Blizzard 1230-IV accelerator (is this good, bad or what?)and would like to ask some questions!
1). Is it possable to use USB devices on an A1200??
2). I have a Amacom PCMCIA CD/DVD drive, will this work on the A1200 and does it need drivers and and if so where can i find them??

Please help!
Im finding this quite daunting, especially as reading through the forum i've never heard of 99.9% of the things your talking about!

[that_punk_guy]

watcher wrote:
Hi
I have'nt used an Amiga for about 10 Years! But now i thought id get another one as my old A1200 was probably the best computer i ever owned! So i have bought a A1200 from ebay (i havnt actually got it yet!) along with a Blizzard 1230-IV accelerator (is this good, bad or what?)and would like to ask some questions!

A 1230 board will make the A1200 much faster than you remember a stock A1200 being, it's not enough to play MP3s smoothly, but it's enough to have fun with. Did it come with any RAM?

1). Is it possable to use USB devices on an A1200??

You can buy a USB card for the A1200, these attach to an internal "clockport" in your Amiga. Some Amigas unfortunately don't have this port, that's one thing to check once you have the machine before you start planning any upgrades.

2). I have a Amacom PCMCIA CD/DVD drive, will this work on the A1200 and does it need drivers and and if so where can i find them??

The connection works in theory if you have the 16-bit version of the PCMCIA card. As far as I can tell Amacom supply 16-bit and 32-bit cards for their drives.

You'd also need drivers, I have no idea if they exist. http://www.aminet.net is the first place to look for any Amiga software you're after.

Please help!
Im finding this quite daunting, especially as reading through the forum i've never heard of 99.9% of the things your talking about!

Welcome to Amiga.org. We're all dorks. :-)

[watcher]

Hi
the Amacom drive has a 16-bit PCMCIA card, so it will work then? Also the Blizzard has a 68030 @ 50MHz and a 68882 @ 50MHz it is also fitted with 32MB of RAM!

Would this machine be able to run OS 4.0 and surf the web? or do i still have alot of work to do??!

[Jope]

watcher wrote:
Hi
the Amacom drive has a 16-bit PCMCIA card, so it will work then?

Drivers, drivers.. If you can find suitable drivers. Not likely.

Also the Blizzard has a 68030 @ 50MHz and a 68882 @ 50MHz it is also fitted with 32MB of RAM!

Would this machine be able to run OS 4.0

No. You need a PPC card for that

and surf the web?

Yes, if you're not in a hurry and enjoy looking at low-colour low-resolution screen modes. (I didn't check to see if you mentioned anything about a vga card, sorry :-)

or do i still have alot of work to do??!

Depends on what you want to do with the machine.. :-)

If you want to do any serious work, get a tower + PCI expansion + proper vga card.. I don't know how long the 030 will last, though..

[Ryu]

you want to get the e IDEFix package from aminet, its only a demo but its fully functioning bar the annoying requester. It comes with an IDE driver for the PCMCIA slot, I used to use a PCMCIA IDE CD-Rom drive on my amiga many years ago :-)

As for running OS4 Id get your machine running first which what is the best 030 there is and seee how you like the classic feel, If OS4 is the way you want to go youd be better off buying an AmigaONE.

Other updates I would suggest would be for you to buy a set of 3.1 roms for your A1200 and OS3.9, that will bring your amiga up to speed prety much. You might also like to get a "scandoubler/flickerfixer" for your A1200. It will allow you to hook your Amiga up to your PC monitor and use highres laced screenmode, which is a fairly large screenmode without it killing your eyes.


As for web surfing, basic browsing, email checking and IRC are all very doable on your little setup, assuming you have a hard drive for it :-)

[Ryu]

oh and welcome to Amiga.org. We're a mad bunch but generally friendly and helpfull, just dont feed the trolls :-)

[watcher]

Thanks for your help guys!
I have a 10GB and a 4.5GB 2.5" IDE HD from my old laptop, will these work in my A1200? Also is everything inside ready or do i need a fitting kit?

Im sorry for all the questions etc, but i really appreciate your help!

[Ryu]

id stick the 4GB one in, OS3.0 (the os that you'll get with your amiga) as standard wont go above the 4GB limit on a HDD, not that youll need to use more than 4GB really..

All you need to do is pop off the top of the A1200, and fir the drive, though youll need a 2.5" HDD cable, so I hope you have one of those handy :-)

look on www.powerc.com/amiga/ for OS3.9 and OS3.1 roms.

[watcher]

Thanks, just a couple more thing i promise!!
What are the roms for? When i used to have an A1200 the workbench was just on some floppy's?!

Also, earlier someone said that my machine is not powerful enough to decode and play MP3's, yet my Atari Falcon 030 which had the same 68030 cpu but at only 16MHz did it with no trouble at all???!!

[Jope]

Ryu wrote:
you want to get the e IDEFix package from aminet, its only a demo but its fully functioning bar the annoying requester. It comes with an IDE driver for the PCMCIA slot, I used to use a PCMCIA IDE CD-Rom drive on my amiga many years ago :-)

What PCMCIA CD-ROM did you use? The Alfa Data one?

I wouldn't be so optimistic on this drive working - the PCMCIA-adapters the IDE-Fix package supports are just adapters, they aren't controllers..

Basically they speak ide through the PCMCIA port whereas I'm pretty sure the OP's PCMCIA card is an actual IDE controller on a card, like a PC would expect..

[Matt_H]

Also, earlier someone said that my machine is not powerful enough to decode and play MP3's, yet my Atari Falcon 030 which had the same 68030 cpu but at only 16MHz did it with no trouble at all???!!

An 030 can decode MP3s, it just won't be pretty. You'll probably need to set your playback to mono, 11025Hz, 1/4 bitrate. Some Amiga sound cards have MPEG decoding hardware built in (Delfina, some others with an expansion module) and there's also an adaptor for the parallel port that decodes MP3s (you can build this yourself or buy it from some dealers). In those cases, you should be able to playback at full quality with almost no CPU load.

Welcome to Amiga.org!

[watcher]

Thanks, just a one more thing i promise!!
What are the roms for? When i used to have an A1200 the workbench was just on some floppy's?!

So do those roms contain the OS (workbench) or are they just a firmware update thats necassary for OS 3.9 to run?

Thanks!

[jj]

you are correct 3.1 roms are the firmware(basically) needed to run os 3.9.  I used to have the same blizzard 030 and i could play mp3 decent enough.

get the roms and os3.9 u wont regret it


welcome to amiga.org

[whabang]

watcher wrote:
Thanks, just a couple more thing i promise!!
What are the roms for? When i used to have an A1200 the workbench was just on some floppy's?!

Also, earlier someone said that my machine is not powerful enough to decode and play MP3's, yet my Atari Falcon 030 which had the same 68030 cpu but at only 16MHz did it with no trouble at all???!!

First of all: Don't be afraid to ask questions! :-)

The Falcon can play MP3's as it has a DSP (Digital Signal Processor) to decode them with. It's not the CPU itself.
The Amiga doesn't have any DSP, so it has to rely on raw CPU power to do the decoding.
It is possible to fit a DSP in the form of a sound card, though this is rather expensive.

[that_punk_guy]

watcher wrote:
What are the roms for? When i used to have an A1200 the workbench was just on some floppy's?!

So do those roms contain the OS (workbench) or are they just a firmware update thats necassary for OS 3.9 to run?

The simplest way to look at it is that the core of the OS - the stuff that doesn't really need to change that often - is on the motherboard's ROM chips. The Workbench disk just has the extra utilities and libraries that "flesh out" the OS and set up/store your preferences, etc.

For best results, you need to have the same Kickstart (ROM) and Workbench (disk) versions, except for OS 3.5 and 3.9, which both run on Kickstart 3.1 ROMs.