Fastest,Easiest,Cheapest way to transfer adf images between PC and Amiga(mostly 500)
 

[UPDATE] I've just received feedback for using the kit with AMIGA 500+ : Transfer times are reduced ~50% against AMIGA 500! You can copy an adf image to the disk in just 75 seconds!!
(Finally found something that ECS chipset along with kickstart 2.0 made a REAL difference from OCS kick 1.3: I/O ports work faster! :) )

If you happen to have a "humble" Amiga 500 like myself ,without any "serious" addons (except maybe from an extra 512k ram and a 2nd floppy...) you would probably tempted many times by the numerous games that are widely availiable today, in the form of adf images,and how you could enjoy them on your beloved A500. Or perhaps, you have some programs or games (even saved games...http://www.amibay.com/images/smilies/smile.gif) that you'd like to transfer them as adf images and use them with winuae or just take adf backups!
Up untill now, the options we have where:
1) Use a serial cable and some porgram like amiga explorer which is probably rather easy procedure, but,unfortunately the poor 68000/7.16Mhz of an A500 can't give you nothing faster than 19.2kbps transfer rate e.g. at least 8 MINUTES to transfer one adf image!!!
2)Use some floppy emu with sd card.Again,this "solution" is rather expensive (~90euro),and it doesn't give you any noticeable speed improvement,as the use of a fast sd card might suggest,the speed of amiga accessing adf images on sd card, is more or less of a classic floppy disk drive.
3)Use a CATWEASEL MK4 PLUS PCI card .Of course this card can do much more than transfer adf files to amiga disks, and for that, it's rather expensive too (~120euro including postage)

Having to face this situation, i decided to try and "fill the gap" between the cheap but slow serial transfer "solution", and the fast but expensive floppy emu or catweasel pci card alternative. After a lot of searching,testing and programming, i've come up with a "solution" that , not only combines the cheap cost of the serial cable with MUCH more transfer speed,but also, is SUPER easy and simple to do it! ;)


FIRST THE "INGRIDIENTS" for the..."recipe":

1) An amiga 500 and it's psu http://www.amibay.com/images/smilies/smile.gif .Frankly you wont be needing ANYTHING else for the procedure,not even a monitor or tv connected to your amiga !(extremely usefull if there is a realtive big distance between your amiga and pc or if you dont have enough space for the monitor near your pc)
2) A PC running windows (XP,VISTA,7 32bit or 64bit) equiped with a parallel port. .
3) A special kit i make, where you can find it here . Kit includes a special custom made parallel cable and 1 amiga boot disk.There are 2 versions of the kit, with or without a pci parallel card in case your pc doesn't have one on board. Also ,bellow i give you all the neccesary info to try and make it yourself too! ;)
4) Many amiga formated 3.5" disks to transfer your beloved games adf images!

Also you will need one of these https://www.dropbox.com/sh/grjrqpee1...dmyzmz1ha?dl=0 . Download the appropriate file according to your windows version (adf_transfer_32 for 32bit windows and adf_transfer_64 for 64bit windows) and uncompress it anywhere in your hard disk.

Now for the "cooking":

FOR TRANSFERRING ADF IMAGES FROM THE PC TO AMIGA 500:

1) Connect amiga and pc with the cable (beware to plug the right end on each side,if you put it either way it will not work!)
2) Power on your amiga
3) Insert the boot disk of the kit, and wait untill floppy led turns off
4) Insert the first empty amiga disk.
5) Go to the uncompressed folder and Run adf_transfer.exe. (on windows vista/7 you must "run as administrator")
6) Press "open file" button and select the adf image you want to transfer
7) Press "transfer" button.
8 )On the cli window that will appear on you screen of your pc, you watch the procedure of the transfer.For an adf image it will take about 1 minute and 50seconds!! (compare it with the at least 8minutes you need using a serial cable for the transfer...)
9)After the transfer is completed,insert another empty amiga disk to your A500 drive
10)Goto step 6)

FOR TRANSFERING DISKS FROM AMIGA 500 TO ADF IMAGES ON YOUR PC:

-For 32bit version of the program ONLY: Install the special dosbox megabuild release, found in the uncompressed folder.USE THE DEAFULT INSTALL DIRECTORY (otherwise amiga->pc transfer will not work)
1) Connect amiga and pc with the cable (beware to plug the right end on each side,if you put it either way it will not work!)
2) Power on your amiga
3) Insert the boot disk of the kit, and wait untill floppy led turns off.Press <esc> and then <enter>.Wait untill floppy led turns off.
4) Insert the first amiga disk you want to transfer.
5) Go to the uncompressed folder and Run adf_transfer.exe.Select direction "AMIGA-->PC" (on windows vista/7 you must "run as administrator")
6) Press "transfer" button.
7) After the transfer is completed,you will have a newly created adf image in the folder of the adf_transfer programm.insert another amiga disk you want to transfer, to your A500 drive.
8 ) Goto step 6)

The expected speed improvement over transfers using a serial cable would be:

ON AMIGA 500: ABOUT 430% THE SPEED OF THE FASTEST SERIAL TRANSFER (max 19200bps)
ON AMIGA 500+/600:ABOUT 220% THE SPEED OF THE FASTEST SERIAL TRANSFER (max 38400bps)
ON AMIGA 1200: ABOUT 150% THE SPEED OF THE FASTEST SERIAL TRANSFER (max~56000bps)

Using xcopy (perhaps the best disk utility on amiga) needs about 1minute and 40 seconds to copy an entire disk,which is roughly the same time you need to transfer the adf image from your pc to amiga disk, using an amiga 500!
As you can see, the hole step procedure is so plain and simple that,if you follow exactly the steps above, you can transfer many disks in a row, without even having a monitor connected to your amiga!

Now, if you are more of a "do it your self" guy, you can try and make the special parallel calble yourself:

You wil need 2X 25pin D male connectors and make the cable (using a multistrand cable with at least 10 inner cables) according to this:

=============================================
AMIGA SIDE | Pins | PC SIDE
----------------------------------------------
Data bit 0 | 2 <---> 2 | Data bit 0
Data bit 1 | 3 <---> 3 | Data bit 1
Data bit 2 | 4 <---> 4 | Data bit 2
Data bit 3 | 5 <---> 5 | Data bit 3
Data bit 4 | 6 <---> 6 | Data bit 4
Data bit 5 | 7 <---> 7 | Data bit 5
Data bit 6 | 8 <---> 8 | Data bit 6
Data bit 7 | 9 <---> 9 | Data bit 7
Busy | 11 <---> 11 | Busy
Paper Out| 12 <---> 1 | Strobe
Ground | 25 <---> 25 | Ground
==============================================

Also you must take the file "paradise" which is in the folder "TOAMIGA" (inside the "adf_transfer" folder that you previous download),transfer it to an amiga disk and execute it in wb's amiga shell.For more information read the included paradise.doc.
I hope this new method of fast,easy and cheap adf transfer would make many of you to get your old amiga's out of the closets and trunks http://www.amibay.com/images/smilies/smile.gif, and enjoy once again your beloved programs and games you want!http://www.amibay.com/images/smilies/wink.gifhttp://www.amibay.com/images/smilies/smile.gif


*some usefull notes:

1)Always turn off amiga and pc before connecting parallel cable.
2) On the amiga-->pc transfers you may notice that sometimes pc and amiga can't start the connection.In that case press <esc> and <enter> on amiga and "transfer" button on pc program.
3) I have succesfully test the kit with the program using an amiga 500 and 2 pc's:a rather old athlon xp with on board parallel port running windows xp/7 32bit, and a modern quad core amd fx pc equiped with a parallel port on a pci card, running windows xp/32bit and windows 7/64bit.
4) All programs that are used in the transfer proccess (including my adf_transfer gui utility) are freeware.
5) Some "teaser": Check out the attached photo of the program, "on duty". Notice that having transfered ~25% of the adf file to disk,the ramaining time expected, is less than 85seconds!!

Tutorial
 

Thank you for the very clear Tutorial.

Is this ADF files only, or any type of files ?

The automatic step procedure i describe above, is for transfer adf images only.I did that in order to simplify and "automate" the hole procedure as much as possible, and also because i think that adf image transfer is what most people want
BUT, the paradise dos utility ,which is actually doing the transfers, can be used for any kind of transfers, stand alone files, or even hole directories (i mention that on my ebay listing too).
Inside the adf_transfer folder you will find the paradise.doc document that explains how to use paradise utility manually on both amiga and pc.It's like using a common dos command with various parameters.
Now,if you are planning to use 32bit version of adf_transfer you must also check Cli_usage_of_paradise_on_windows.txt ,which explains in 2 words how to use manually paradise under windows xp,vista,7.
If you are planing to use 64bit version of adf_transfer then you must use paradise through dosbox svn daum (which is also included in the "dosbox" subfolder). You must also configure the dosbox's config file ("dosbox.conf") in order to enable parallel port usage through dosbox. (open dosbox.conf with notepad , go down to [parallel] section,and follow the instructions given there).

I now offer TWO VERSIONS of the adf transfer kit:One with the cable and amiga boot disk and one which also includes a pci parallel card for all of you that you dont have a pc with parallel port onboard! http://www.amibay.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

I just bought one of these kits for my A500+ and can confirm that it's excellent!

(The only thing lacking is an easy way to format newly-bought floppies before using them :) )

Thanks for your support mate!
So,you confirm the time needed for an adf transfer to disk, using an Amiga 500+ , to be about 75seconds?
As for the "thing" you said, i included an adf image of xcopy under the "Usefull adf images" subdir of the adf transfer program.
Using xcopy is the most fast and easy way to format amiga disks! It takes ~35seconds to format a disk, and if you happen to have a second floppy drive,you can format 2 disks at the same time! ;)

I haven't stopwatched it, but it's a decent speed - I'll time it properly later on.

Ah - excellent - I have to admit I haven't investigated the ADF images yet.

Since i had a whole batch to format, and no blanks at all that were already formatted, I booted with the floppy supplied with the kit and did this:

> Ctrl-D
> Esc
> Return
(Breaks out of the program on the disk)
> copy df0:system/format ram:
> ram:
(eject boot disk, insert disk to be formatted)
> format drive df0: name Empty
(repeat the last line as necessary.)

Worked a treat - (though tedious to type on an A500 plus whose key caps are currently being Retrobrited!)

Well, the reason you can do that, is because the amiga boot disk is actually a workbench disk with a modified startup sequence and the addition of the paradise utility (*note:i renamed it from 'paradise' to 'p' just to make the use easier for anyone who wants to use it manually through amiga cli).
Note also that apart from adf image of xcopy i've included an adf image of the boot disk -so you can immediately make easy and fast backup of it- and a workbench 1.3 disk!

@ikonsgr:

Thanks for making these utilities and hardware available the Amiga community. :)

However, I've had to remove your link in the opening post to the ADF_TRANSFER archives, because they contain Workbench Disk images.

Your links cannot be restored until you have removed the ©Commodore files from the archives. Only then will they be within the EAB rules.

Well I've just stopwatched it on my A500+ and it took about 1.53 - similar to the claimed speed for an A500. Maybe the transfer speed varies from PC to PC? That's still an impressive result though - great kit :)

I've also had to remove your eBay link, because the listings include links to the archives (as well they might - I should have checked yesterday :rolleyes).

From my experience, transfers on 32bit OS are a bit faster than on 64bit (~20%), as it's more "direct" in the first case (on 32bit paradise runs directly through cli where on 64bit runs through the special version of dosbox as this was the only way i managed to make it work on 64bit OS). Of course speed may vary a little even from pc to pc.
Anyway, good thing is that, up until now, all kits i gave works fine for everyone! ;)

The wiring diagram for the cable looks a bit strange to me, parallel pin 11 (Busy) is on the status register and is therefore an input, why are the 'Busy' lines wired together when they are both inputs, can anyone shed any light on this or am I missing something?

Thanks guys.

Just came across this. Out of curiosity any 'screenshot' of what is happening during this process on the Amiga side?

From my experience, the Cheapest, way to do it was with a 720k PC disk, ZIP, and crossdos. I have a video showing how to do it this way, and I'll get it uploaded soon. ;)

Yup, that's how I do it :D
Still, sometimes ADF cannot be packed into 720K. That's where HJSPLIT comes in handy on the PC side. Then just join the files on Amiga using the native JOIN command.

@ Matt The specific cable might use parallel port but it's NOT a typical parallel cable. Obviously the guy who made it many years ago is using a custom way of his own for managing transfer thus the "strange" wiring you mention! ;)
@lesta_smsc Check out this. When you insert boot disk, it just runs automatically paradise utility and waits for connection. But you really shouldn't care at all of what happening on the amiga side. Apart from changing disks you don't do nothing else! I have design the hole procedure to be as simple and easy as possible. You will not need even a monitor connected to your amiga! In practice amiga is like a "slave drive" connected to the pc via parallel port! ;):)
@lifeschool I make this kit mainly for A500's where ,if i'm not mistaken,cross dos can't run on a plain A500 with 512k ram (paradise can transfer disks even on an ancient AMIGA 1000 with 256k RAM , as it does not copy hole disk to ram but only 4 sectors at a time e.g. only 44kb ram needed)
Anyway, even if you can use cross dos on any amiga 500, i never said ABSOLUTE "cheapest". I said "Fastest,Easiest,Cheapest" combined! :) That is, considering easy of use combined with speed you get, it's definitely the cheapest way to do it!
You insert the boot disk in amiga.Wait 10seconds for drive to stop. Then with a couple of mouse clicks on your windows xp/7/64bit/32bit pc, you select the adf file you want to transfer and press a button! From then, it's only a matter of selecting adf files and changing disks in you amiga drive!
Pretty much easier and faster than " 720k PC disk, ZIP, and crossdos" method don't you think?;)

I've just updated the adf transfer program.
I got feedback from a couple of friends that use the kit on a pc with 2 parallel ports, so i've added a list box with all the available port addresses to choose. You can download the new version from the same place.

@ikonsgr: You are breaking the EAB rules for the second time by posting links to copyrighted Workbench disk images.

You will be banned from the EAB forums permanently if it happens again.