Best way to use CDs on a real Amiga?

[Steam Ranger]

I would like to be able to use CDs on my Amiga 2000 (PiStorm), but don't have a CD drive.

I have no real interest in getting a hardware CD drive, I've already speant a few hundred dollars on the Amiga and it wouldn't be worth all the effort to get CDs working for so little extra software. Instead I'm looking for an emulated CD drive solution.

I hope that I can emulate a CD drive using the emulation hardware I have installed, so here's a list of the important hardware:

• 68020 (PiStorm)
• SysInfo says it's a bit faster than an A4000
• 1MB Chip RAM
• 8MB Fast RAM (PiStorm)
• ECS Agnus
• 3.1 Kickstart ROM
• Two real internat floppy drives
• One GOTEK drive mounted in an external caddy

Is there an easy way I can emulate a CD drive using this hardware? I'm guessing there'd be some way to do it on the PiStorm seen as it can emulate SCSI hard drives, but I don't know how. Additionally it would be best if the emulation can use .iso images, but it would be fine to use other formats.

[amiman99]

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[Seiya]

the only disavantage is that you have to copy iso on Hardisk every time you need to use a CD-ROM.

[alexh]

If you use the Musashi implementation of PiStorm (rather than the Emu68) then you can emulate a physical CD-ROM drive at the block level using ISO images. If you're using AmigaOS 3.1 or lower you'll need to install a CDFS under AmigaOS to access the drive (Such as IDEFix, CacheCDFS, AmiCDFS, AsimCDFS etc.) but it works.

[Thorham]

Originally Posted by Seiya

the only disavantage is that you have to copy iso on Hardisk every time you need to use a CD-ROM.

You can also use a network share and mount the image without copying it over. Useful for non-game CDs.

[Steam Ranger]

Originally Posted by alexh

If you use the Musashi implementation of PiStorm (rather than the Emu68) then you can emulate a physical CD-ROM drive at the block level using ISO images. If you're using AmigaOS 3.1 or lower you'll need to install a CDFS under AmigaOS to access the drive (Such as IDEFix, CacheCDFS, AmiCDFS, AsimCDFS etc.) but it works.

Is there a guide to setting up a CD-ROM emulator with Musashi?

[Steam Ranger]

If I were to pick between AmigaOS 3.9 and 3.2, which would be best? What are the pros and cons?

Remember that I can give my Amiga pretty much any amount of CPU and memory, the only requirements I can't meet is PowerPC or AGA.

[Tarzin]

Originally Posted by Thorham

You can also use a network share and mount the image without copying it over. Useful for non-game CDs.

Is that solution working with a real amiga connected to Internet?
Which software does it require?
For the moment, I only do transferts by FTP between my A1200 and my PC

Thanks for your informations

[Aardvark]

Originally Posted by Tarzin

Is that solution working with a real amiga connected to Internet?
Which software does it require?
For the moment, I only do transferts by FTP between my A1200 and my PC

Thanks for your informations

I use SMB2, but FTP should work too with FTPMount.

[Seiya]

i had write a small samba guide and i posted here:
https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=116361

[Thorham]

Originally Posted by Tarzin

Is that solution working with a real amiga connected to Internet?

Yes.

Originally Posted by Tarzin

Which software does it require?

SMB2FS: https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=113017

You also need a shared folder on your peecee (with SMB2FS you just mount the folder so you can access it). After that you can mount CD images with DiskImageGui: http://aminet.net/package/disk/misc/DiskImageGui

[Daedalus]

Originally Posted by Steam Ranger

If I were to pick between AmigaOS 3.9 and 3.2, which would be best? What are the pros and cons?

It depends on your use case. 3.9 has a lot more out-of-the-box functionality and quality of life stuff, but 3.2 fixes and updates a lot of the core 3.9 components.

Personally, I'd go for a mix of both. A base installation of 3.2 (with all the updates) and then add various items from 3.9 (or more recent updates of them) that aren't included in 3.2, e.g. Amidock, UnArc, ViNCEd, WBClock, AHI, Amplifier, THE... The 3.9 HDToolbox is nicer too IMHO.

[Jope]

It's a good idea to check Aminet first for newer versions of those 3.9 preloads. Not everything is in there, some have to be taken from the 3.9 install.

Just looking at that list, back in the 3.9 times I personally only used ViNCEd and AHI out of those, the rest were just disabled and wasting space. :-)

[Tarzin]

Originally Posted by Thorham

Yes.

SMB2FS: https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=113017

You also need a shared folder on your peecee (with SMB2FS you just mount the folder so you can access it). After that you can mount CD images with DiskImageGui: http://aminet.net/package/disk/misc/DiskImageGui

Thanks Thorham.
For the moment, I'm trying the solution with FTPMount.
Maybe, I'll go futher later with SMB2FS ;-)

[Tarzin]

Finally switch to SMB2FS solution.
With Diskimage, I'm able to mount ISO on my Amiga directly from my PC without any ISO transfer.