Amiga disk images from PC to Amiga 500

[desiv]

What's the file size on the Amiga file?

I can check the size on mine when I get home.

(I know I said I don't use it, and that's kind of true. I haven't use AmigaExplorere for serial, but I have it installed for Network on my 1200..)

 

Also, did you do the "protect +e filename" yet?

 

desiv

[Tempest]

48000 bytes I think. Something like that.

 

I did not get a chance to try that, but since the file is much much smaller than it should be (2000 to 4000 bytes) I don't think that's the problem.

[Tempest]

Could the problem be that I'm running the commands from Workbench itself instead of booting up to a CLI only screen (I think you can do that by holding down some key combo)?

[djpubba]

Just buy my Catweasel and be done.

 

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/211334-fst-catweasel-mk4-readwrite-retro-floppies/

 

[Hatta]

AST works from Workbench, I don't know why that would be a problem for AE. Have you tried reducing the transfer speed? I'd try it at 300 baud just to make sure that transfer speed is not an issue. Yeah it will take a long time, but you only have to do it once to determine whether speed is the problem.

[Tempest]

AST works from Workbench, I don't know why that would be a problem for AE. Have you tried reducing the transfer speed? I'd try it at 300 baud just to make sure that transfer speed is not an issue. Yeah it will take a long time, but you only have to do it once to determine whether speed is the problem.

Yeah that was my next idea. I'm also going to check the cable and make sure it's still good.

[Grommix]

Another 'cheap and fast' option: http://m1web.de/ADTWin/index.php

But not too easy, since you have to solder a parallel cable. Also, you need a PC with a parallel port and a spare (internal) floppy drive.

[Nebulon]

Ok, Im going to do you the best favour by being brutally honest - ditch the A500 - sell it on ebay for what you can get.

 

Then buy an A600 or A1200 and a cheap pcmcia to compactflash adapter - you can buy them as cheap as $3.00 from ebay sellers in Hong Kong etc, and a compact flash card (1 GB or more).

 

You will then have a much nicer machine that can boot off its internal hd to Workbench whereby you can run your games from the HD using WHDLoad (MUCH faster than crappy floppy disks, more reliable etc).

 

There is a driver for the compact flash card to pcmcia on Aminet - install it and then you can simply copy games from the pc to Amiga using the compact flash card (the driver on Aminet comes with a file system called Fat95 which allows the Amiga to read/write Fat formatted drivers/devices).

 

A600 and A1200 are relatively cheap. Trying to upgrade a crappy A500 is expensive, difficult and pointless when even an A600 is a far better machine that will do exactly what you want to do out of the box.

 

Hope this helps.

I wouldn't ditch the A500. It's the most compatible machine for running the classic OCS games. Believe me, if you dump the A500 you'll miss it after awhile. I have a 1200, 4000, and a 500 and there's a ton of stuff in my games library that won't run on the A1200 or the A4000. If I remember correctly, the A600 comes with the 2.x ROM. This newer ROM is a big contributor to compatibility issues with older games.

 

As for transfers, PC2Amiga works well for me. The other ideas like a serial transfer using telecomm software or burning a CD and reading it on a CD-ROM drive are good ones too (e.g. the NEC external SCSI CD-ROM unit).

Edited November 24, 2014 by Nebulon

[abraXXious]

I have more than 40 Amigas all refurbed and restored and most upgraded as far as they can go....with the exception of PPC cards which I find too expensive to be worth the small software support they have - I leave PPC apps to the next gen Amigas such as my beautiful X1000 etc.

 

Of all the Amigas I find the most worthless to be the A500 followed by the CDTV. My reasoning is as follows:

 

The A1000 has a lovely design, was the very first Amiga and so has a collectable appeal and as they are not too common are worth something. There are several amazing upgrades for it which are internal (I cannot STAND external bolt on hardware ramshackles!).

 

The A2000 was the first really expandible Amiga. Built like a tank, can internally take an 060+128Mb Fast ram, 2mb Agnus Chip upgrade, 24 bit Graphics Card, 16 bit Sound Card, USB Card, internal DVDRom etc etc. Very reliable (stick to revision 6.x mbs though).

 

The A3000 has a really nice case design, high build quality, 2mb Chip ready, 030 as standard, build in scan doubler, Zorro 3 slots, can take all of the same type of expansions (except internal DVDRom) as the A2000 AND, if you have deep pockets, even a PPC card with which you can run the latest Amiga OS 4.

 

The A4000 has Zorro 3 slots, native AGA, 2mb Chip standard, 030 or 040 as standard, can take all of the same type of expansions as the A2000/3000, ppc card and again can run Amiga OS 4.

 

The A1200 has a nice design, 020 as standard, 2mb chip as standard, internal IDE for HDs, PcmCia slot (VERY handy these days especially for file transfer between miggy and pc), KS 3.x as standard. Very expandible, has access to PPC cards etc and even (rare and expensive) internal BVision 24bit graphics cards. Has mediator kits and tower kits available. Can be expanded considerably and run latest Amiga OS 4.

 

The A600, whilst once considered the worst Amiga, is now quite an attractive prospect (at least in comparison to the craptacular A500). It is the most compact and "cute" Amiga. It has KS 2.x as standard, PcmCia slot, 2mb Agnus, internal IDE for HDs, and can be expanded INTERNALLY with an 030, 64mb fast ram, KS 3.1, 2mb chip ram, Dual clock ports, Subway USB, Indivision ECS etc etc. Quite a powerful miggy can be housed in such a small attractive case.

 

Even the CD32 has SOME merit. It is 2mb Chip standard with AGA, CDrom, KS 3.x and can be expanded into full Amiga with similar specs to an A1200.

 

Now the CDTV, except for a nice case and matching peripherals in black (I have a mint set up including monitor, floppy drive, keyboard, mouse, trackball etc), it only has a single speed cdrom using caddies (annoying) and is almost impossible to upgrade. It only shipped with KS 1.3 even though KS 2.x had been out for a while in the A3000. Only has OCS chip set, no 2mb Agnus, only 1mb ram, no ide connector etc etc. Still, nice case and can be expanded with more ram, KS 3.1 etc with a little work.

 

Lastly you have the A500. The most crappiest Amiga to own in the 21sst century. Back in the day the A500 was the most important Amiga model as it was the model which made the Amiga affordable to the masses and so helped make the brand popular. it was also the gamers model. However, the years have not been kind. The A500 is large and a desk filler. Has no IDE, only KS 1.x (unless you find an A500+ which have their own problems), only 512kb or 1mb ram as standard, only ECS, No cdrom (not counting the A570 bolt on as it is only single speed, uses caddies and as an external add on only ADDS to the desk filling monstrosity), no PcmCia, upgrades are thin on the ground etc etc.

 

I can think of absolutely no reason why anyone would want to own an A500, except the nostalgia connected with it being their first Amiga. They are ugly, low specced, difficult/expensive to upgrade and offer far less hardware than ALL of the other Amiga models. I guess the only nice thing I can say about the A500 is that as the most common (and least valued) Amiga it is dirt cheap - much cheaper than any other Amiga model - but you get what you pay for.

 

That being said I own two Amiga 500s (well actually one A500 and one A500+) simply for the sake of a complete collection. Both of which are mint and boxed and never get used as there is simply no point these days. Even the lowly A600 in stock format runs circles around them.

Edited November 24, 2014 by abraXXious

[Nebulon]

Wow. That was quite the extensive post.

 

At one time or another I've owned the following:

Amiga 1000, 2000, 500, 1200, 3000, 4000.

 

I personally find the Amiga 500 to be the most compatible machine for OCS games for the size. A person could use an A2000, but (IMHO) it's just too big (and the fan's noisy).

 

IDE isn't a deal-breaker for me by any means. SCSI is the more flexible interface and there are tons of old SCSI drives kicking around that can be connected up to an Amiga 500.

 

Last but not least, my A500s and the A1200 have been the most reliable of all the Amigas I've owned or currently own.

[RobertB]

abraXXious wrote:

 

 

> The A500 is large and a desk filler

 

The same can be said of the A2000 and of the CDTV with all of its add-ons.

 

> Has no IDE

 

Unless you install IDE68k.

 

> only KS 1.x (unless you find an A500+ which have their own problems)...

 

Unless you install 2.04 or 3.1 (my favorite A500 here has 1.3 and 3.1 on a Kickstart ROM switcher)

 

> ...upgrades are thin on the ground etc etc.

 

There were far more upgrades for the A500 than its successor the A600, and they were easier to install, too. Just hook an add-on onto the A500's Zorro II port on its side and away you go. My favorite upgrade is the GVP A530 accelerator with 8 meg RAM and then to connect an external SCSI CD-ROM drive to it. Don't need acceleration? A cheaper method is to get the A590 with 2 meg RAM and connect an external CD-ROM to that. Don't want all that hardware hanging off the A500? Then there is the current 8 meg Fast RAM/IDE expander from Kipper2k and the future Elbox Turboflyer 530 and the future Zeus 68k (which will include IDE, too).

 

More things to buy,

Robert Bernardo

Fresno Commodore User Group

http://www.dickestel.com/fcug.htm

 

[Seob]

I currently use a cdtv, that has been modded so i can use normal joysticks. I also added a switch to disable the cd-rom drive so i have more ram free for 1 meg games.

I have the black keyboard, mouse and diskdrive and it's a nice looking setup.

[FastRobPlus]

That being said I own two Amiga 500s (well actually one A500 and one A500+) simply for the sake of a complete collection. Both of which are mint and boxed and never get used as there is simply no point these days. Even the lowly A600 in stock format runs circles around them.

 

I wrote an uber-long pros and cons for each system. One page of pros ad cons for each system, though mostly geared towards veteran retro collectors who are new or new-ish to Amiga. You can find it here.

 

I mention this because there are a lot of hidden considerations. For example, the capacitor issue on the 600/1200/4000 can bite people who don't know to check. Some factors are regional. Here in the US, the 500 and 2000 and expansions are far more common than elsewhere, and of course the 500 has a new secret weapon - the ACA500 accelerator, which I think is unsightly, but represents a crazy easy way to get into retro Amiga computing with old hardware at a rock bottom price.

[Chilly Willy]

At one point in time, I had my A500 with the Fatter Agnus, 1MB of chip, 2.75 MB of bogo mem, a 25MHz 68030 with 8MB of ram, a Slingshot adapter plugged into the side (which gives you two standard A2000 style Zorro II slots), with a Ethernet card in one slot, and an EMPLANT card in the second slot. I did all my EMPLANT development on that for at least a couple years before finally getting an A4000 to do EMPLANT development on.

[Nebulon]

If you do decide to get a hard drive for your Amiga, here's the process for making Amiga disks from .ADF files:

 

- Copy the ADF2Disk file to the C directory on your hard drive (the C directory in AmigaDOS is like the Command directory in MS-DOS and allows you to issue the command from any folder).

- Copy the .ADF files of the games you want to play to a folder on the Amiga's hard drive.

- Put a blank DS/DD 3.5" diskette into the drive.

- Type the following:

 

ADF2disk filename.adf

 

In a matter of seconds, you'll have a ready-to-play game for your Amiga.

 

The ADF2disk file is available as part of WinUAE and is also posted here:

http://www.blitter.com/~nebulous/utilities.html

[Kung-Fu]

It's November 2021.   Covid is still a 'thing'.  It took a LONG many years, but now if you go to  https://amiga.robsmithdev.co.uk/ you can make your own Arduino kit to read/write Amiga floppy disks on PC (Windows 10) or in Winuae 4.9.0.0 RC2 as of the time of this writing.  I have 4 Slim USB floppy disks converted using Robs kit (I bought them from Rob).  It's free to make this but Rob has a USB connecter he sells now that you can swap into a 20$ USD drive from Amazon (typical USB floppy drive) and it works!   I am not affiliated with Rob but I'm connected on his discord group as "Kung-Fu".  If you are still alive, (hoping you are!) you waited long enough and your wish has come true!

[+OLD CS1]

That was a great read.  I am astonished that these little devices are only $20, and devices like the GreaseWeazel are only $22.  Absolutely amazing work.

[mnemo]

Just to add some bits to the history, a friend of mine already did a cheap hardware in 2016 to read and write Amiga disks on PC with a Teensy 3.2 micro controller. It's called ADF-Copy and I remember Rob Smith referencing the project on Facebook, too.

 

English homepage here: ADF-Copy