A500 original demo disks

[stainy]

Hope someone remembers these:

Way back in `87 when I bought my A500.. I got the usual stuff with it ( bought it
from Woolworths ) hheh anyway.. I got some demo disks with it, I think there were
about 12 - 15 and they were all numbered, and had different coloured labels.
remember these?? I`ve been after these for a few years now, I`ve tried everywhere
you can think of....
These demos were a bit of a mixture...graphics and sound mainly.. one had the King
Tut pic, and another had a colour cycling demo of a waterfall... some had speech,
One I remember had a pic of a skier, and the sample went " be above the rest in
Colorado" and another had Spock saying something.

Hoping you remember them at least ( because everyone I`ve come across doesn`t
remember them at all ) I have one disk back at my parents place in the UK, but it`s
been written over.. and I would love to get my hands on these, in adf format.. just
for posterity :)

[RetroMan]

Uhm, you allready requested them a time ago I guess : http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?threadid=2043&highlight=a500+demo+disks

[RCK]

Here Here ! much older one ;)
http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=49

[CHiEF]

sounds to me that the disks you're talking about is the deluxe paint 3 disk... they had the king tut pic and the animated waterfall and stuff... ah i remember them well. :cheese

[Jim]

I think he's getting his memories mixed up !!

King Tut & The Waterfall are definitley on the Deluxe Paint III examples disk.

But this is well after 1987.

As for the other examples you have listed, I am not sure - they may well indeed be from these 1987 discs.

[stainy]

Nah, I`m not mixed up, yeah, granted the animated waterfall and King Tut are on DP3 but these were on disks that came with my Amiga.. and yes I requested them a while ago.. I just thought I`d ask again, seeing as the site gets alot of new members... all I need is one guy remembering and having them :)

[RetroMan]

Originally posted by stainy
I just thought I`d ask again, seeing as the site gets alot of new members... all I need is one guy remembering and having them :)
Then you´d just had to post into your old thread that it comes back on top, using every time a new thread is ........ uhmmm .... no good :D

[Big-Byte]

Hmmm numbered disks...

Didnt Silica do a special Amiga pack with these.. They always had whole page adverts in the early amiga magazines...

Dont know about Woolworths though..

I seem to remeber the disk labels where Pink.

Anyway if these are the ones you are thinking of then my mates got them and Im going round to see him this friday...

Will let you know..

[stainy]

Hey you might be onto something here! I remember getting one of my A500`s from Woolworths ( English shop ) but I can`t remember if it was that I had to return or my C128.
But yeah some of the disks where pink, and I do remember Silica doing something there :)

Here`s hoping :)
Anyone know where I might be able to find some scans of the Silica adverts?? ( a long shot I`m sure ) ??

[Big-Byte]

Did one of the disks have a Raytraced 'Street' with lots of robots walking their dogs etc... wandering about in it?

I havent seen the disks yet but that memory came to me today.
Tomorrow night I shall collect the disks.

[stainy]

Yes, street and dogs :) well done matey :) I`d completely forgotten about that one :)

THis is looking promising :)


Thanks very much

[andreas]

Was The Juggler also part of the demo set back then? This is so long ago ... well if anyone needs it, I'll upload it.
I've got two versions - one that needs WB (original), the other that autoboots (done by yours truly).

[Big-Byte]

Even if it was not part of the set the juggler Demo shuld be in EVERY amigans collection. I have not got it :( so could you up the self boot version please?

Sorry stainy, now some disappointing news....

My mate only had two disks of the set. I think there were a lot more (maybe 10). Anyway they are in the zone..

the disks are..

GAMES - Classic Card & Board Games (Amiga disk 2)
GAMES - Arcade Action and Much More (Amiga disk 3)

They were dumped from the original disks.

[stainy]

Well thanks for these anyway :) 2 are better than none.. :)
Thanks again :)

[andreas]

Even if it was not part of the set the juggler Demo shuld be in EVERY amigans collection. I have not got it so could you up the self boot version please?
Yes, sure. Even though some time has passed, I did not forget you. :)
Side-note: this demo is available in bootable version on Warlock's ADF archive. Don't ask me if my version is better ... well yes a bit maybe, because it contains a "light version" of the 1.3 Workbench.

[Big-Byte]

Ta very much.. Im starting to look at sprites and animation on the GBA so maybe a GBA Juggler demo coming up....

[stainy]

Bump! still looking for these! I have a couple of adf`s ( Disks 2 & 3 ) after the rest!!

[stainy]

Bloody bimp bump :(

[stainy]

I`ll bump this right up again! :)

[Grimbog]

hey... this is quite a happy coincidence - I think I know the ones you're referring to, and I'm also looking for the full set, as I'm about to write a detailed article on the history of Gaming Music (from ZX spectrum to modern day music composition).

These disks started my interest in sound and music.

One of the scenes from the disk set has some quite interesting sounds going on to demonstrate the "Paula" chip, so I'd be very interested if anyone knows where to get these disks set from.

Out of the 12 (or is it 15) disks sets I've found 2 from my disk drawer (yes I still keep most of my Amiga disks). I'm unsure if they still work, and I'm unfortunately unskilled in converting these over to adf.

Are these the ones you were referring to or am I totally off the mark?

http://www.obscuresounds.com/a500_disks.jpg

I've attached a link to the image as well just in case:

http://www.obscuresounds.com/a500_disks.jpg

[stainy]

Whoa!! yes!1 these ARE the ones I`m on about.. and have been for a few years now!
I have disk 2 and 3 adf`d plus I have a few of these disks... but I`m pretty sure they have been wiped and written over. If the adf`s would turn up then I could adf them with my catweasel...
Nice to know I`m not alone heh

here`s what I have.

http://img218.imageshack.us/img218/9712/demosic9.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

[darby]

Just found this post - I still have 6 of the original 10 disks that was distributed by Silica with my original A500 many moons ago. I still have Disk 1 (Animated Sound and Graphic Demos), 3 (Arcade Action and Much More), 5 (Slides), 6 (Digitised Demos), 7 (Useable Demos) and 8 (Ham pics).

BTW I see you used disk 10 as a sound tracker samples disk :-)

I'll see if I can ADF them if you are interested (not sure whether there are any read errors - they are nearly 2 decades old now <sigh>).

[stainy]

darby :) yes please could you adf them.. .. I`m also interested in the disks themselves.. you want to part with them?? :)

[darby]

stainy - I'll have a go at ADF'ing the disks later and I'll upload. If they all go Ok I wouldn't mind parting with the original disks as I can make a copy.

Bought back quite a few memories reading through the post, especially the colour cycling Heart demo and the Colorado skiing sample.

[stainy]

Hhaha yeah... still can`t quite remember it... think it`s ` Be above the rest in Colorado` something.
I`ll take those disks off you :) that would be brilliant... I can swap something or paypal you some ?

[stainy]

Any news?

[darby]

I'm not precious, so PM me with details if you want them :-)

However, good and bad news. I tried to ADF the disks and 3 worked and 3 didn't. However, I tried this on an A1200 I acquired from eBay and the floppy isn't great so it may just be the unit.

I'll twin the 3 over to my laptop and upload to the Zone later. Having said that, the 3 I can't ADF actually boot, kinda, with a few read block errors, so conceivable you could trackFix them and reimage.

FTR Looking at the contents, they seem to be a collection of stuff from the original Fred Fish PubDomain disks.

[hit]

if you have a spare pc with two 3.5 floppy drives you can try using adfread:
http://www.winuae.net/frames/download.html
http://www.winuae.net/files/adfread-1.1.zip

this one needs additinaly a tiny driver:
http://simonowen.com/fdrawcmd/
http://simonowen.com/fdrawcmd/FdInstall.exe

adfread will read bad tracks on its next run. this can repeated as offten as required. offten gives good results after a couple of retries.

[stainy]

Why does adfread need two floppy drives? Amiga disk goes in one.. pc disk in the other.. and it creates an .adf ? does it create it on the pc floppy disk then ?
Just tried getting two floppies working on my machine... it`s not having any of it! :( :(
Bugger.. sold my catweasel because it wouldn`t work.. this doesn`t work.. i`m destined not to get anything working :(

[Hewitson]

darby try to copy the files onto a good disk and then adf that. If you are lucky the bad sectors will not have anything stored on them, or if they do it may be replaceable.

[Tolls]

I know this is an old post, but I wondered if these Silica Demo disks ever made it to the zone?

Cheers!
Tolls.