Just got A600, need some basic help

[misjah]

Hello again. I need some basic info about games and applications transfer, this time for A600. It has 1 meg RAM, 800 MB hdd with two partitions and no CF adapter. There are some tools already installed, including WHDLoad but I don`t know how to use them exactly. OS is 2.05. I tried copying some games that are prepared for hdd (whdload) but when I try to execute them, OS is missing ''install'' or something like that. Any help would be appreciated.
I use serial cable for transfering and parallel too. Amiga explorer is working good but I just don`t know where to put files and how to install new games.

[smoorke]

http://aminet.net/package/util/misc/Installer-43_3 is what you are missing
One word of advice is to always use the expert mode when using install scripts
Novice mode makes for a messy install more often than not
To install this just copy the 'installer' tool to sys:utilities/
after you have done Lha x installer43_3.lha ram:
you will need LHA for this which can be obtained from http://aminet.net/package/util/arc/lha
Read more about how to use LHA.run here

Where you would install games is entirely up to you, but personally i'd try to keep the 1st partition (Workbench:, System: or whatever it may be called on your setup) as clean as possible. makes it easier to find problems.

i'm not really an expert on whdload but most slaves require more than 1mb ram so you might have to look into getting an expansion if you want to be able to run all games there are for whdload

[smoorke]

one note to that installer package, the guide in there has it's tooltype set to multiview.
Unfortunatly multiview is not available on 2.x systems due to no datatype support.
However, you can use Amigaguide to read .guide files, which should already be installed in Sys:Utilities/

edit: upon further inspection the guide is more for creating your own installer scripts and thus is not much use to you.

[misjah]

I`ll try to figure out something... I`m totally new to Amiga with HDD. Isn`t there some easy way to copy games to hdd? Directly from boot floppies or adf images? I also have games that are extracted in folder eg. lemmings and lemmings.info file.

[smoorke]

Originally Posted by misjah

Isn`t there some easy way to copy games to hdd? Directly from boot floppies or adf images?

Unfortunatly that answer to that is NO.

To write .adf files to physical disk you can use any of the following
http://aminet.net/search?query=write+adf
When you have more memory you can also write the adf's to a RAD: disk in ram.
RAD: is a reset resistant drive in ram with it's default settings set up to mimick a real floppy.

Most games use custom bootblocks that take over the system and use a trackloader to read data from the diskdrive in a non-os friendly manner.
If a game shows up as DF0:NDOS that is the case and whdload is your only option.
If it doesn't show up as the above you could try checking for a installer tool which is most of the times on the first or last disk of a set.

Originally Posted by misjah

I also have games that are extracted in folder eg. lemmings and lemmings.info file.

Those are most likely to be whdload slaves. but like i said i'm no expert in those matters

[misjah]

I have no trouble making floppies from adf. I use hombre boot disk and transfer via parallel cable which is pretty fast - less than 2 minutes to make floppy. But, I don`t want to make floppy for every game that I want to tryout. Guess I`m doomed to use FDD for now...

[Photon]

If you write floppies, it will take about 2 minutes to get each physical disk. No way around that.

If you want to just try out games, it's easy to test them in WinUAE before deleting them

Or get WHDload+all WHD-games available and install that in WinUAE and play your brains out!

[misjah]

Yeah, making floppies is not good solution for this machine. I like real hardware, that`s why I`m collecting old consoles and computers. I do use emulators to test out games but I`s just not the same.