Amiga disk images from PC to Amiga 500

[mäsäxi]

Hello!

 

I am thinking of finding my old Amiga 500 and trying if it still works.

 

I am wondering if these days there could be some easy way to make downloaded Amiga games to work on real Amiga. I checked some google results, but all were around ten years old and needed a hard disk for Amiga or something similar not too easy for everyone.

 

I don´t have hard disk, my Amiga 500 originally has 512Kb and I have half mega extra memory with memory on/off switch in my Amiga, but I think extra memory didn´t work anymore when I powered up my Amiga many years ago.

 

I have always thought there should be some PC-tool, which allows to insert downloaded Amiga game to disk and also inserts some program to disk to make it readable on Amiga 500.

 

I hope my wish has came true.

 

Sure, I still have my old disks (I hope that my favourite games still work), but it would be nice to download and play some games, which I never saw outside of old computer game magazines.

 

Have a nice day! I hope you can help me!

[desiv]

you've heard the business maxim: Fast, Good, Cheap - Pick 2...

It's similar with getting images on the Amiga (especially the 500).

It's: Fast, Easy, Cheap - Pick 2.

 

:-)

 

If you want Easy and Cheap:

Serial transfer using ADF Sender Tool (or Amiga Explorer) and a serial port (can be a cheap USB one) on the PC.

Getting the Amiga side tool to your Amiga can be a bit tricky, but once done, it's just: format a disk on the Amiga (I had trouble if the disks weren't preformatted), type a command on the Amiga, click some stuff on the PC and wait.

(You have to use a null modem cable, but those are easy to find/make)

Slow, but once you have it, it's easy and cheap.

 

If you want Fast and Cheap:

There's a parallel port version that is similar. It's not quite as easy as the serial version as parallel on modern PCs isn't usually as easy (USB parallel doesn't work) and you have to have a special cable (which isn't too hard, but not as easy as a null modem serial cable).

If you're PC doesn't have parallel (most nowadays don't) you have to add a card, which might or might not be easy.

But it's faster to transfer disks to the Amiga over parallel.

 

Fast and Easy, but not Cheap:

-Kryoflux USB controller. Hook this to your PC and add a PC floppy drive. Then you can write images to the disks directly from your PC.

I have one and it works great, but it's not cheap. Also, it works with IPF images, which include the disk "protection" so you can write protected disks.

-Catweasel PCI floppy controller: Similar to above, although I don't have one.

-HxC SD floppy. Replace your Amiga's floppy with this device. Put ADF images on the SD card (I think you have to run a program to translate them from ADF to a different format, but I'm sure that's easy). Plug SD card into device. Select disk image with LCD and buttons.

 

There is also some hybrids that ruin my metaphor.

Cheap, easy-ish and fast-ish (kind of)

If you're Amiga 500 has crossdos (or something similar), you can take the image on the PC, split it into 2 files. Place it one a PC 720k formatted disk (1 piece at a time, as the Amiga floppy image is over 720k). Usually this involves copying it to RAM: on the Amiga, then appending (joining) the second piece so you have the complete image in RAM: on the Amiga. Then you write it to the floppy.

It's awkward, but when you've done it a few times, it's not that bad. You can also try compressing the image to see if you can get it to fit on a PC floppy and then decompress it to RAM: on the Amiga.

This can be easy, or it can be difficult. As for fast, the actual writing to the disk is fast, but the process is slow.

 

desiv

[FastRobPlus]

That's a nice, comprehensive list.

 

I favor your last option - and I have found that at least one of the HD disk drives made for Amigas can fit into the drive bay of an A500. Along with an updated KS ROM, you can actually format IBM disks as 1.44 and read them as HD disks on the Amiga side, which can cut out the splitting step altogether.

 

Unfortunately, HD drives are scarce.

 

 

I think there will be some other easy options soon. The forthcoming batch of A500 accelerators will have clock ports and flash storage, which should help ease the whole process.

Theoretically, you could already buy a Subway USB board and a clock port adapter that would fit in an A500, giving the machine USB. Unfortunately, Subways get produced in small batches and are almost always out of stock.

[ApolloBoy]

I used to use Amiga Explorer along with a proper serial cable to write disks; it was fairly slow but it worked. You do have to be careful about the disk images you use though as I encountered a few that had problems on an actual system. I've since switched to using an HxC and I've never looked back.

[Gandor]

I think there will be some other easy options soon. The forthcoming batch of A500 accelerators will have clock ports and flash storage, which should help ease the whole process.

Theoretically, you could already buy a Subway USB board and a clock port adapter that would fit in an A500, giving the machine USB. Unfortunately, Subways get produced in small batches and are almost always out of stock.

Please tell a little more about this A500 accelerator. Where can I find information about it.

[FastRobPlus]

Check out the Zeus thread and the "New products for C64 and Amiga" threads at English Amiga Board:

http://eab.abime.net/forumdisplay.php?f=29

Both those A500 products have a good shot at coming out this year. Individual Computers says the ACA500 is coming in May.

[abraXXious]

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.

[+wood_jl]

A500 is more reliable than A1200. That has been my experience, because of leaky capacitors that also plague the A4000. They're surface mounted and tiny, so if you're (1) equipped and (2) trained to fix this - or know someone who can do it for you, then it's probably not an issue. I don't know where to get that fixed, nor how much, and the A1200 I tried ended up souring me on that model.

 

Google "Amiga 1200 caps" or "Amiga 1200 capacitors" and you'll see lots of pages and forum threads about this.

 

If you Google "Amiga 500 caps" you'll see pages talking about the "caps-lock" key, and very little about bad capacitors.

 

People are going to deny this, because they like the A1200 - and it's a good machine if it works - but all the pages about this wouldn't exist if this were not an issue.

As well, since that model came in at the end of the Amiga's life, there isn't that much support for A1200-specific capabilities.

In my case, all the games I wanted to play anyway are for the architecture of the A500 anyway.

 

With 1MB of RAM and HxC SD floppy emulator, the Amiga makes a great game machine, and it's easy to put together, easy to use, easy to get disk images to, and reliable.

 

 

As a bonus, the HxC can be used on other machines like this:

 

 

I'm certainly no Amiga expert. But I don't have to be to say that the A500 is a good machine, and I wouldn't ditch it immediately. WHDLoad on A1200 sounds pretty amazing, but it's going to require upgrades, etc. Perhaps someone in the thread can offer to inexpensively re-cap A1200s and then I'll be convinced to give it another try some day.

[Mirage]

Love my 500 and HxC. Also have HD/CF setup with 3mb, which is nice to have too. While not the ultimate Amiga, and certainly with it's shortcomings, the 500 is a great machine for games. Just get a trapdoor 512k expansion, the HxC (great investment for use with many machines) and you're good to go. Very easy to use, great value.

[desiv]

Google "Amiga 1200 caps" or "Amiga 1200 capacitors" and you'll see lots of pages and forum threads about this.

If you Google "Amiga 500 caps" you'll see pages talking about the "caps-lock" key, and very little about bad capacitors.

People are going to deny this, because they like the A1200 - and it's a good machine if it works - but all the pages about this wouldn't exist if this were not an issue.

I wouldn't deny that..

The A500 is a tank and a great machine.

And the A1200 does have a history of CAP issues..

That being said, my 1200 (knocking on wood) is still going strong.

Of course, I did get a solder rework station for Christmas and one of my goals is some CAP replacement in the future for him and my Vectrex, which is another great machine that has a history of CAP problems...

 

Both are great machines..

The A1200 has the CAP issues, but is (at least so far) much easier to expand.

The A500 is a tank, but expansion is an issue (or has been so far).

 

And I agree, an Amiga 500 with 1M RAM and an HxC would cover most of your gaming needs....

 

There's some great AGA games, but not so many that it's a big deal. Most of the good AGA games have good OCS versions anyway.

 

So, it's a win/win situation really.

 

desiv

[mäsäxi]

Thank you for your answers, everybody! :-)

 

First, I would like to point out, that I have had my Amiga 500 since the Golden Days, so I am not selling it or throwing it away. Second, I am not willing to buy Amiga 600 or any other bigger model either. You lovers of bigger and better Amiga models are free to love your machines, but Amiga 500 is the only "true" Amiga for me. So the solution must be found for my Amiga 500. And no, I am not going to rip Amiga disk drive away from my Amiga just to add some hard drive. I want to keep my Amiga same. :)

 

So, there still aren´t any PC-tools which makes it possible to insert downloaded Amiga 500 game to 3,5" disk and then insert it to my Amiga 500 and then just watch and enjoy while game loads without any problems? It still feels a bit strange, since it´s so easy with MSX, all you need is just to have 3,5" disk drive both for PC and MSX, then just download a game, insert it to 3,5" disk and insert disk into your MSX´s disk drive and load it and it works. (though you may need to use some POKE etc to make it run on certain models, that relates to "great" MSX "standard", but otherwise it´s just that easy) Yes, I know Amiga OS is not made by Microsoft.

 

As Amiga 500 is decades old machine and it was so popular also, I really thought someone had made some PC-tool years ago to solve that problem. Then one would not need any cables or anything else, just an Amiga 500, PC with USB disk drive and internet connection. (and enough disks;))

 

I think the best option(s) for me are cheap and easy. I am happy with 8-bit games and day by day I am getting older, that´s why I don´t like the idea of putting much money in some "computer geek device" just to have possibility to play few games until I will get bored soon.

 

Could you please tell me how much those "cheap and easy" cables do cost?

 

 

Thank you in advance!

Edited April 11, 2013 by mäsäxi

[Hatta]

I use a typical DB9/DB25 null modem cable like this.

[Seob]

Thank you for your answers, everybody! :-)

 

First, I would like to point out, that I have had my Amiga 500 since the Golden Days, so I am not selling it or throwing it away. Second, I am not willing to buy Amiga 600 or any other bigger model either. You lovers of bigger and better Amiga models are free to love your machines, but Amiga 500 is the only "true" Amiga for me. So the solution must be found for my Amiga 500. And no, I am not going to rip Amiga disk drive away from my Amiga just to add some hard drive. I want to keep my Amiga same. :)

 

So, there still aren´t any PC-tools which makes it possible to insert downloaded Amiga 500 game to 3,5" disk and then insert it to my Amiga 500 and then just watch and enjoy while game loads without any problems? It still feels a bit strange, since it´s so easy with MSX, all you need is just to have 3,5" disk drive both for PC and MSX, then just download a game, insert it to 3,5" disk and insert disk into your MSX´s disk drive and load it and it works. (though you may need to use some POKE etc to make it run on certain models, that relates to "great" MSX "standard", but otherwise it´s just that easy) Yes, I know Amiga OS is not made by Microsoft.

 

As Amiga 500 is decades old machine and it was so popular also, I really thought someone had made some PC-tool years ago to solve that problem. Then one would not need any cables or anything else, just an Amiga 500, PC with USB disk drive and internet connection. (and enough disks;))

 

I think the best option(s) for me are cheap and easy. I am happy with 8-bit games and day by day I am getting older, that´s why I don´t like the idea of putting much money in some "computer geek device" just to have possibility to play few games until I will get bored soon.

 

Could you please tell me how much those "cheap and easy" cables do cost?

 

 

Thank you in advance!

The pc and msx both use the same format for the disk 720kb. The controller and floppy hardware is exact the same. The amiga uses 880kb formated disks. The controller hardware is not compatible. The amiga can read 720kb disks, but the pc can't read 880kb disksdue to the hardware.

[Seob]

Check this forum http://www.amigaforever.com/kb/13-118

[amiman99]

Here is another way using parallel cable, you can buy it from him or make it yourself.

http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=62243

[Seob]

I'm not to familiar with the amiga, but is it possible to burn adf files to a cd and then transfer the files from cd to disk on the amiga? I have a cdtv with external diskdrive.

I now use my amiga cd32 with a 200 on 1 cd with a loader. I've kacked a a500 keyboard to be used on my cd32, but i love to play with floppydiscs.

[amiman99]

I'm not to familiar with the amiga, but is it possible to burn adf files to a cd and then transfer the files from cd to disk on the amiga? I have a cdtv with external diskdrive.

I now use my amiga cd32 with a 200 on 1 cd with a loader. I've kacked a a500 keyboard to be used on my cd32, but i love to play with floppydiscs.

You could do that,

I think you can boot from floppy to WB on CDTV then use the CDROM to access the ADF files. On WB 1.3 you can use a command line command ADF2DISK to make your disks (that would work if you have keyboard for your CDTV).

Just make sure you have that command in your "C" folder on your WB disk

[Tempest]

How do you get the Amiga Explorer stuff running on the Amiga? I have the cable hooked to my PC but Amiga Explorer says there's an error writing to the COM port because AE isn't running on the Amiga. How do I transfer the AE files to my Amiga in the first place? I'm running Workbench 1.3 on an Amiga 2000.

[ApolloBoy]

How do you get the Amiga Explorer stuff running on the Amiga? I have the cable hooked to my PC but Amiga Explorer says there's an error writing to the COM port because AE isn't running on the Amiga. How do I transfer the AE files to my Amiga in the first place? I'm running Workbench 1.3 on an Amiga 2000.

You need to set up the serial port settings on the Amiga end once you have them connected. Make sure the baud rate on both computers is set to 19200 with a buffer size of 4096, RTS/CTS handshaking, 8 read and write bits, and no parity. Next, try running the setup on the PC end of Amiga Explorer and it should tell you what you need to do on the Amiga end.

[Tempest]

Ok I figured out where the SETUP option on the PC end was, but when I try that it says it's failed and I can try and increase the buffer size (which didn't work). Here are my settings:

 

PC

-----

BPS: 19200

Data Bits: 8

Parity: None

Stop Bits: 1

Flow Control: Hardware

 

Amiga

--------

Baud Rate: 19200

Buffer Size: 8000 (had it at 4096 but it didn't work)

Read Bits: 8

Write Bits: 8

Stop Bits: 1

Parity: None

Handshaking: RTS/CTS

 

Also, CRTL-C Doesn't seem to kill the transfer on the Amiga end. The only way I can seem to do that is to reboot the Amiga. The CTRL key is working though, I wonder what's up?

[Tempest]

I'm getting CLOSE! I can get the file to transfer now, but when I run the SETUP file it says "File is not an Object Module". Does this mean it's not transferring right? The program seems to think I need to Press Ctrl C to break out of the transfer and all of that but it breaks out by itself before the transfer is complete. It makes me wonder if the program isn't bailing out somehow and the file didn't transfer correctly.

[desiv]

I haven't done the AmigaExplorer transfer, but for the ADF Sender Terminal transfer of transwarp, you had to send the file to the Amiga, and then you had to send some other file (any file) to flush the buffer. Otherwise you got a truncated file that wouldn't work.

 

Also, you should check to see if the file has the executable bit set on.

 

protect +e filename (or something like that, my CLI is a bit rusty)

 

desiv

Edited April 14, 2013 by desiv

[Tempest]

I'm following the instructions in the Amiga Explorer file so I shouldn't have to do anything extra. Honestly it looks like it's erroring out somehow.

[Seob]

Do you use a real serial port on the pc or a usb to serial? I use the serial port to usb adapter a lot for work, but sometimes we have to use a old pc with onboard serial, because not all old hardware likes the usb to serial connector. Has to do something with a voltage difference between a real serial port and a adapter.

[Tempest]

It's a real serial port (they're COM3 and COM4). I bought a serial and parallel port card for my PC a few years ago. Best investment I ever made.