Using PCMCIA CF adapter to lauch programs/games from

[Hedefar]

Hi guys.

Can you tell me if it's possible to launch programs on an Amiga 600 while they are still on a CF card in a PCMCIA-CF adapter?

Just wondering if I really need to buy the hard drive that I've been planning or if the above might be sufficient for my needs.

I will primarily be using my newly acquired (long wanted) Amiga for ProTracker and OctaMED, so I would need to be able to start those from the CF card and save files to it from within the programs as well.

Thanks in advance gang!

[thomas]

Certainly you can run programs from a CF card. Just double click the icons.

Of course you need CF drivers on your boot floppy in order to access the CF card.

You can even boot from the CF card if you make a small floppy disk which mounts the CF card and moves the needed assigns to it and then continues to execute startup-sequence from the card.

[Hedefar]

Thanks Thomas!

Sorry for the stupid questions. It's been 19 years since I last had an Amiga and all my PC knowledge is completely useless

When you say "boot floppy", do you mean Kickstart or Workbench?
And how do you find a driver for the CF card and get it onto the boot floppy before a way to transfer files from PC to Amiga has been established?

Is a driver also needed if I get a PCMCIA adapter with an SD card instead?

I feel so stupid

Thanks again!

[thomas]

Originally Posted by Hedefar

When you say "boot floppy", do you mean Kickstart or Workbench?

There is no Kickstart disk for an A600, or do you have one?

An A600 has a Kickstart ROM. It cannot be changed except by removing the chip on the Motherboard and replacing it by another one.

And how do you find a driver for the CF card and get it onto the boot floppy before a way to transfer files from PC to Amiga has been established?

How are you going to access files on the CF card if you don't have software to access it?

I suppose you got a driver disk with the CF-PCMCIA adapter. If not, you need to establish a way to transfer files to the Amiga.

Is a driver also needed if I get a PCMCIA adapter with an SD card instead?

Certainly.

[Arnie]

I have this..............

http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/...roducts_id=440

[thomas]

That page says:

You do not necessarily need a hard disk to use this adapter- the floppy disk supplied is a stand-alone boot disk as well as being a hard disk installation disk.

So you have everything you need, don't you?

[Arnie]

Is hat a rhetorical question Thomas?

[Hedefar]

Thanks for the replies guys.

Thomas, no, I don't have a Kickstart floppy. I just recall that it was possible with my first A600 about 19 years ago to load a modified kickstart on top of the one in the ROM which would seemingly override the original one.

The previous owner modified my current Amiga so I have a switch which changes between two seperate ROM's, it seems. One setting is for kickstart 1.3 and one for 2.0 so that was a nice surprise to discover.

Arnie, I've been looking at that adapter for some days now. It says "Stock Expected: T.B.A.".... so that can be soon or never but it seems worth the wait to get an easy way to reach my goal
Good to hear that you own it and do not complain about it. I take that as a positive review.

And yes, Thomas, it seems it has all that I would need

[Arnie]

Apart from the 'EasyADF' Software, the actual drivers are available from here,

http://aminet.net/package/driver/media/cfd#contents

and the fat95 driver for PC reading/writing is here,

http://aminet.net/package/disk/misc/fat95

Make a bootable floppy (type> install df0: at the shell prompt) and copy the 2 archives to it. Then you need to make a Startup-Sequence as Thomas suggested in post #1.

[Hedefar]

Thanks for the links and info Arnie!

[Hedefar]

Hi again.

The PCMCIA adapter at amigakit is still not in stock but I found a guy here in Denmark who has a used CF adapter for sale.
He says that he doesn't know the brand- or model name of it but that it's just a standard PCMCIA card and according to his knowledge, it should work on my A600.

Any views on this?

My Amiga has Kickstart 2.0, rev. 37.300.

Thanks in advance!

[Hedefar]

I just got a reply from Amigakit. Thier adapter is in stock now.

But I just saw what it says under compatibility:
Amiga 1200 or Amiga 600 with Kickstart/AmigaOS 2.05, 2.1, 3.0, 3.1, 3.5 or 3.9

And as mentioned, I'm running 2.0, rev.37.300.

Any thoughts on whether this would work or not?

[thomas]

37.300 is 2.05

http://www.gregdonner.org/workbench/wb_205.html

[Hedefar]

Thanks for the help!

[magnetic]

Hedefar

You are good to go with your rom.

[Hedefar]

Thanks magnetic.
I have placed my order now after all the good advice I got in here