ADF Transfer Kit

[quantum112]

Here's what I've come across on the German eBay site, anyone have a clue how/whether this works?

http://tinyurl.com/mh5z5f

To translate what it says in the auction:

"With this article you can, without problems, make real Amiga Disks from ADF files. No modifications on the Amiga or PC are neccessary.

You will be delievered the following:

1. HD-disk with PC software
2. DD-Disk with Amiga software, bootable
3. German-written instructions manual

You need:

1. Amiga 500/600/1200/2000/3000/4000
2. PC with disk drive and Windows operating system
3. A few DD-disks for the Amiga"

How can this work, as far as I know no PC drive can write anything that an Amiga drive can read, so how could this software make it possible? Anyone have a clue which software is in question?

[Old Fool]

Originally Posted by quantum112

Here's what I've come across on the German eBay site, anyone have a clue how/whether this works?

http://tinyurl.com/mh5z5f

To translate what it says in the auction:

"With this article you can, without problems, make real Amiga Disks from ADF files. No modifications on the Amiga or PC are neccessary.

You will be delievered the following:

1. HD-disk with PC software
2. DD-Disk with Amiga software, bootable
3. German-written instructions manual

You need:

1. Amiga 500/600/1200/2000/3000/4000
2. PC with disk drive and Windows operating system
3. A few DD-disks for the Amiga"

How can this work, as far as I know no PC drive can write anything that an Amiga drive can read, so how could this software make it possible? Anyone have a clue which software is in question?

Well it's the Amiga floppy drive that you write those ADFs. You'll need null-modem cable to attach PC to Amiga.

[quantum112]

Don't think so...doesn't mention anything about any cables.

[Old Fool]

Interesting. Is it a fake then?

[quantum112]

I don't know

[Old Fool]

Is here someone who speaks German and would translate it to English?

[quantum112]

I already did in first post, that's exactly what it says, I sent email to seller and will see what he says...

[Old Fool]

Oh yes, the rest was some other text...

[StingRay]

Looks pretty much useless to me. "The PC software creates a data disk from the ADF." WTF?!

[quantum112]

Yes but it then says "The Amiga software creates a usable Amiga Disk from the Datadisk" ?? Seems pretty vague.

[StingRay]

What it does is just copying the ADF to a PC formatted disk which the Amiga program then mounts and writes back to disk. That's my guess at least.

[quantum112]

Well isn't that what all of us need to do? What I wonder is does it work, because it sounds much simpler than having to deal with complicated serial transfers...

[StingRay]

You can do all that yourself without paying 11.90EUR, format a PC disk, copy the ADF in question to that very disk, mount PC0: on Amiga, copy the file to your Amiga and write it back to disk with tools such as TSGUI.

[quantum112]

Originally Posted by StingRay

You can do all that yourself without paying 11.90EUR, format a PC disk, copy the ADF in question to that very disk, mount PC0: on Amiga, copy the file to your Amiga and write it back to disk with tools such as TSGUI.

No, not without a serial cable, which is exactly what this is supposed to be an alternative to. And how do you intend to get that tool to the Amiga without again, a serial cable? And if I had a serial cable(that worked), I certainly wouldn't pay 12 Euro for two floppies. Get it? It's the whole chicken/egg scenario. This is supposed to be a much simpler replacement. I won't try it, because the eBay seller is vague, I don't know who wrote the software and he provides zero info, there's nobody to ask for tech support if the whole thing doesn't work, etc. I'll make do with my Bluetooth Serial adapters but I just figured it was something worth looking into if others want some cheap alternative for a bone stock A500 like mine.

[Arnie]

Originally Posted by StingRay

You can do all that yourself without paying 11.90EUR, format a PC disk, copy the ADF in question to that very disk, mount PC0: on Amiga, copy the file to your Amiga and write it back to disk with tools such as TSGUI.

Can the Amiga read 1.44mb pc disks?. I thought pc0: only read 720kb disks and since adf`s are what 880-900? it wouldn`t fit on the disk.

[Graham Humphrey]

If you archive them then they generally tend to fit

[StingRay]

Originally Posted by quantum112

No, not without a serial cable, which is exactly what this is supposed to be an alternative to. And how do you intend to get that tool to the Amiga without again, a serial cable? And if I had a serial cable(that worked), I certainly wouldn't pay 12 Euro for two floppies. Get it? It's the whole chicken/egg scenario. This is supposed to be a much simpler replacement. I won't try it, because the eBay seller is vague, I don't know who wrote the software and he provides zero info, there's nobody to ask for tech support if the whole thing doesn't work, etc. I'll make do with my Bluetooth Serial adapters but I just figured it was something worth looking into if others want some cheap alternative for a bone stock A500 like mine.

Excuse me? Serial cable? First of all, I don't see that this tool comes with any serial cable. So I'm quite sure it just works the way I described. Anyway, you do not need a serial cable at all, so far I always managed to insert a disk into my Amiga drive without the help of any serial cable (sorry, couldn't resist). Again, format a disk on the PC, copy the ADF to it (you may have to split or pack it so it will fit on a 720k disk) and just read the disk on your Amiga then.

Originally Posted by Arnie

Can the Amiga read 1.44mb pc disks?. I thought pc0: only read 720kb disks and since adf`s are what 880-900? it wouldn`t fit on the disk.

The Amiga can read 1.44 disks too but you need floppy drive that is able to read HD disks obviously.

[quantum112]

Originally Posted by StingRay

Excuse me? Serial cable? First of all, I don't see that this tool comes with any serial cable. So I'm quite sure it just works the way I described.

I'm sure it does. I never said anything about the transfer kit needing a serial cable.

Anyway, you do not need a serial cable at all, so far I always managed to insert a disk into my Amiga drive without the help of any serial cable (sorry, couldn't resist). Again, format a disk on the PC, copy the ADF to it (you may have to split or pack it so it will fit on a 720k disk) and just read the disk on your Amiga then.

That would be really nice if I could do that, unfortunately my Amiga doesn't read PC written floppies. And "Mount PC0:"...wait, what? I have an A500 with WB 1.3 with obviously no CrossDos support and I can't get tools like Dos2Dos on it either without a serial cable. And just like I said if I had one I wouldn't need the 12 euro kit. Since that kit is obviously meant to be able to write ADFs for the Amiga to read it's a good alternative for those without serial cable and then like you said "You can do it without paying 12 euro" - yes, with a serial cable. Otherwise, your only choice is to buy this.

[prowler]

Hi quantum112,

If I were putting together a package such as this, it would be

(1) a PC formatted floppy disk containing a utility to split an ADF file in two, so that the two halves could be copied onto 720K DOS formatted floppies for transfer to an Amiga, and

(2) an Amiga formatted floppy disk containing a Dos2Dos-type utility, an ADF2Disk-type utility and a utility to rejoin the two halves of an ADF file (and it wouldn't need to be bootable).

However, from what I can see of the German instructions in this picture,



it is far from certain that the method is that simple. These words, for instance: „...Betrieb des PCMCIA...“ and „...per drag and drop auf jedes...“, seem to be describing something beyond what is strictly necessary.

prowler

[quantum112]

True, the PCMCIA thing is not very convincing. Oh well, my Brainboxes adapters arrive next week (in stores they cost 100 pounds each, I got two for 30 pounds, nice bargain)
so hopefully all will be fine.