Putting Kickstarts in the DEVS: folder

[Nostalgeek]

Hello everybody!

First post on this totally awesome forum...hopefully there will be more to come, this looks like a great community! But as this is my first timer, I will also take the chance to introduce myself a bit to you guys.

So hey, I'm Nicolas, 26 years old, living in Switzerland and working in the IT Team of a big international organization. I'm a total abandonware freak, I do play more recent games but there's nothing like playing these old games, nostalgia is the key.

I just dived today in the world of Amiga emulation. God I love it.

To make a long story short, I've been into computers since I'm 5 yo, in 1987. IBM AT But a few years after I had one of my best friends with an Amiga 500, and we played hundreds of games (all legit...not, lol) I'm missing today - even if some were ported to PC, still they miss this Amiga feeling. I think I can consider myself as a power PC user (it is my job), but my Amiga knowledge is about putting floppies in the side of the A500 and wait for the game to load As i never had one myself, never had a chance to go deeper into details.

So I bought Amiga Forever package today to go the legit way. Installed, then uninstalled it pretty fast :P Hate the interface, and the fact that it's a pre-eaten package - I want to put my hands in the dirt to understand how things work, that's my geek mentality taking over. So installed WinUAE stand alone, and copied the Kickstarts/Workbench versions out of Amiga Forever to WinUAE.

I then ended up after a few google searches on this wonderful board, read the FAQs, read Green Alien tutorials, so I now got a nifty A1200 running on my laptop Then, I discovered WHDLoad, and Killergorilla's packages (dude, I love you, seriously, have my babies).

Everything's running smooth so far...excepted a few games that give me that crappy DOS Error 205. I found many occurences of this problem on this board and others, and the solution seems pretty easy: installing skick and putting kickstarts in the C: DEVS:Kickstarts folder and renaming them correctly.

Mmmh, sounds good...now to my issue:

Installed skick fine.
I do find the C: DEVS:Kickstarts folder now. All the .PAT and .RTB files are patiently waiting for me there. But....I cannot find the Devs folder under my WinUAE windows folder to put the Kickstarts files in there, while it is the solution given on every Error 205 thread I've read....I could maybe copy them using WB3.1 directly, but I'm not confident enough with the Shell as I'm a total newbie with it. I learnt a few commands/syntax thanks to the FAQs I've read, but nothing that helps me with my problem now.

I'm probably missing something _really_ stupid...but forgive me, I'm in New Delhi right now for my job, I've been installing servers and network for 14 straight hours overnight, and I'm still awake now to insure phone support for staff...so all of this is keeping me alive and entertained, excepted this damn problem I just told you about


!!!

Thanks a lot guys, I saw in other posts how competent and friendly some of you were, I really hope to be an active part of this community in the future, and not only when I'm having problems

Cheers mates!

[Nostalgeek]

Heh, finally understood the problem..

My Workbench is a .hdf file, not folders viewable within windows.

After a little search, I found that Total Commander would offer a plugin to access it? That's what I'm gonna try while waiting for potential replies

[TCD]

Hi Nostalgeek,

welcome to the EAB
I think the easiest way would be to setup a new folder-based Amiga HD (mount it in WinUAE) and put the kickstart files in there. Then copy them over on the Amiga side. Make a folder called 'Kickstarts' on your new HD (let's assume it's called 'DH2:') and put all needed files in there. Then open the shell inside the emulated Amiga and type 'copy DH2:Kickstarts DH0EVS all'. Not 100% sure, but it should do the trick

[Toni Wilen]

Really easy way is to drag and drop the folder containing Kickstarts to emulation window

(needs to be in windowed mode)

[Rabbit80]

Cant you just drag n drop from Windows into WinUAE these days?

Be sure to rename the kickstarts and to put the rom.key in there as well...

EDIT: Beaten by Toni

EDIT 2: Woohoo 250 posts

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

Really easy way is to drag and drop the folder containing Kickstarts to emulation window

(needs to be in windowed mode)

Sometimes I forget how easy it is

[Nostalgeek]

Thanks for the answer TheCyberDruid!

Your input would've probably worked indeed, but I can confirm mine did the trick

Here's a quick tutorial for people that may have the same issue:

- Download Total Commander : http://www.ghisler.com/ and install it
- Download TC ADF Plugin : http://ghisler.fileburst.com/plugins/amigadx.zip and extract it anywhere, subfolder of TC is fine
- Launch TC, open Configuration menu -> Options, click the Packer menu entry, click Configure Packer extension WCX's.

All files with extension : type 'hdf'
Then click "New Type" and browse to the plugin's .WCX file. Press ok.
You can repeat this operation with extension 'adf' if you plan to read adf files with TC as well.

- Go the the folder where your kickstarts are stored, make a copy and rename the A500 and A4000 kickstarts according to this table I found on the WHDLoad officiel page, follow the link:

http://www.whdload.de/docs/en/need.html

Don't forget to remove the .rom extension. The files will be considered as having a .A500 and .A4000 extensions under windows, but we don't care.

- In TC, open your Workbench31.hdf file (make sure to have closed WinUAE if it's open or you will get an "access denied" error), inside it browse to Devs\Kickstarts folder, drag and drop the two files to that folder + the rom.key file. A "packer options" window will pop up, just leave everything by default and press ok, it works fine.


And voilà, everything's up and running!

[Nostalgeek]

Arrrgh ahhahah! Would NEVER thought it could ever be that easy...that's brilliant!!!

Okay, so now my beautiful tutorial sounds a bit...useless to say the least?

But hey, if anybody just wanna feel like doing advanced stuff to feel cool I will leave it...could also help setting up TC, could come in handy for other things

As a second purpose, I will leave it so people can pick on me and as a personal history...In a few months or years, I'll get back on my first Amiga thread ever and slap myself on the forehead

Thanks for all the answers!

[killergorilla]

Glad to hear you got it working mate, the more WHDLoad freaks on EAB the better!

I'll have to give the "having your babies" thing a miss though!

[Rabbit80]

Originally Posted by Nostalgeek

Thanks for the answer TheCyberDruid!

Your input would've probably worked indeed, but I can confirm mine did the trick

Here's a quick tutorial for people that may have the same issue:

- Download Total Commander : http://www.ghisler.com/ and install it
- Download TC ADF Plugin : http://ghisler.fileburst.com/plugins/amigadx.zip and extract it anywhere, subfolder of TC is fine
- Launch TC, open Configuration menu -> Options, click the Packer menu entry, click Configure Packer extension WCX's.

All files with extension : type 'hdf'
Then click "New Type" and browse to the plugin's .WCX file. Press ok.
You can repeat this operation with extension 'adf' if you plan to read adf files with TC as well.

- Go the the folder where your kickstarts are stored, make a copy and rename the A500 and A4000 kickstarts according to this table I found on the WHDLoad officiel page, follow the link:

http://www.whdload.de/docs/en/need.html

Don't forget to remove the .rom extension. The files will be considered as having a .A500 and .A4000 extensions under windows, but we don't care.

- In TC, open your Workbench31.hdf file (make sure to have closed WinUAE if it's open or you will get an "access denied" error), inside it browse to Devs\Kickstarts folder, drag and drop the two files to that folder + the rom.key file. A "packer options" window will pop up, just leave everything by default and press ok, it works fine.


And voilà, everything's up and running!

Wow - talk about doing things the hard way

[cosmicfrog]

not kiddin the hard way just double click on the adf plugin in total cmder and it installs its self

[Anubis]

It's lovely how complicated he went with simple thing. No wonder he wants KG's babies.

[davideo]

Originally Posted by Nostalgeek

As a second purpose, I will leave it so people can pick on me and as a personal history...In a few months or years, I'll get back on my first Amiga thread ever and slap myself on the forehead

Welcome to EAB

Don't worry about how you started out - we all started there at some point. Just stick with it and learn as you go along.

One day you'll be able to offer good advice to other newbies

Dave G

[Nostalgeek]

not kiddin the hard way just double click on the adf plugin in total cmder and it installs its self

Nah, that's wrong mate, TC doesn't recognize the .wcx extension, and the install method I described is the one you can find on TC's website anyways.

Thanks for all the kind replies indeed, what I did could be a definition of 'overkill' in any dictionary.

Drag and dropping files to WinUAE is really a brilliant feature, honestly would probably never have thought about it by myself. Often the easiest doesn't come straight to your eye...

[cosmicfrog]

using wcx_AmigaDX_3.3beta.zip just double clickin on it starts the install no need to un pack

[Anubis]

Originally Posted by Nostalgeek

Nah, that's wrong mate, TC doesn't recognize the .wcx extension, and the install method I described is the one you can find on TC's website anyways.

Thanks for all the kind replies indeed, what I did could be a definition of 'overkill' in any dictionary.

Drag and dropping files to WinUAE is really a brilliant feature, honestly would probably never have thought about it by myself. Often the easiest doesn't come straight to your eye...

You got it wrong - more complicated is just perfect in Commodore world. (more expensive also if possible)

Just for example check kickstart roms, where for Amiga you have to legally buy them while Atari released ST roms to public?! (That mean Atari company!)

ps. Check OT area, you might fit perfectly there.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Anubis

ps. Check OT area, you might fit perfectly there.

OT is now called 'Off Topic' Anubis
I think that's what confuses me about WinUAE each time : It's really easy to use...