AMAX 2.5 File Transfer 2.5?

[Amiga-emuman]

Hi. I'm looking for something a little unusual, so I'm hoping that if anyone has this file they'll to rise to the occasion

I'm looking for a program called "File Transfer 2.5" that came with AMAX 2.5, a Macintosh emulator for Amiga. You can read all about this amazing emulator at http://crossconnect.tripod.com/AMAXHOME.HTML

AMAX 2.5 came with 2 disks. One was straight-forward Amigados (the AMAX program disk, which I do have), but the other disk (the AMAX utility disk) was somewhat special. It conatined two "partitions" - one readable by a regular Macintosh drive, and the other partition is only accessible by putting it in an Amiga drive while the AMAX emulator is running.

The specific file I'm looking for is called "File Transfer 2.5". It is a Mac binary file used to transfer AmigaDos<->Mac while the AMAX emulator is running, and a copy of it should be on both partitions of the AMAX utility disk I described.

Therefore the file should be able to be retrieved by inserting into a regular Mac, or by inserting into an Amiga drive while AMAX is running!

Is there a chance that anyone out there would have this disk and be able to copy and post or send me the files on it?

Thanks a million!

[Chuckles]

The official A-Max Home page has a list of dms files for many different versions, including 2.5. The files previously ended up being corrupted if you tried to download them, making them essentially worthless. I received an e-mail last Friday informing me that the site was being updated to correct the problem, and have just downloaded the latest versions. I haven't had a chance to go through all of them yet to see if they contain what you want, but I have at least confirmed that the DMS files can be downloaded successfully and uncompressed to diskettes. Hopefully one of the dms files contains what you want.

You can find the files at http://crossconnect.tripod.com/AMAXHOME.HTML

Hope this helps!

[Chuckles]

It looks like I was overly optimistic. The site has a couple of dms files that are supposed to represent different versions of the utility disks, but those dms files appear to be useless, most likely due to dms inability to deal with the hybrid Amiga/Mac disk format. There may be some small chance that the utility you're looking for is one one of the other disks of course. If you find it, I'd be interested in picking it up too, since I could use it with the A-Max board I have in my A2000.

[Amiga-emuman]

Thanks very much for your reply.

Small world. I have to admit that it was me who chased up the owner of the A-Max home page last weekend to ask him to correct the problem with the files. Thanks to him he has! The DMS files were being recognised as text/html content by the host who places ad banners on all their member's pages. Renaming the files to .ZIP even though they are still .DMS seems to have worked in tricking the server!

I'm very happy because while I own an original AMAX 2.0, it didn't have the .anhd drivers to recognise my A590 Western Digital 20Mb XT Hard Drive, whereas version 2.5 does... so for the first ever I've been able to have my A500 running AMAX boot/filestore in the mac system on a partition on the A590 HDD.



But this leaves the question of the AMAX mac binaries. None of the "file transfer software" was found (by me at least) by looking on those DMS disks.

I have file transfer 2.0, but file transfer 2.5 allows transfer to the mac filesystem from a hard drive partition (or so says the manual). And that would obviously be better than transferring to/from disk ~770kb at a time.

As they're mac binaries I'd expect them to be .sea (self extracting archive) or .sit (stuffit archive) files if they are going to be found on disks formatted as AmigaDOS. I could be wrong but a fairly thorough search of the program disks brought up nothing in the way of transfer software. The original AMAX distributed the transfer program in a hybrid mac/amax format disk which I don't think would easily zip up into DMS/ADF.

However, there are two DMS at the top of that list titled AMAX_UtilDisk_v1.ZIP and AMAX_UtilDisk_v2.ZIP which I was not able to open. Logic says the mac binaries I'm looking for will be in there. Those files are tiny, but so is the software I'm looking for. And the original disks were labelled "AMAX UTILITY".

The files I'm looking for should be in those "utility" disks, so if you have any idea about how to access those AMAX_UtilDisk's I'd love to know. They DMS to disk fine, but then it seems the resulting disks are neither readable as AmigaDOS or AMAX format.

Please tell me if you find otherwise!

Anyway, that's a more complete rundown of my story and why I'm doing a call-out for anyone who might still have access to the original disks.

Thanks again for your reply and please let me know if you find anything or have any more thoughts .

[Amiga-emuman]

Thanks for checking out the disks. Seems while I was writing my first reply you came along with your second Anyway what you say confirms pretty much what I thought. I don't know much about the DMS utility, except that it should have been unsuccessful in DMSing the hybrid. A better situation would be if the mac binaries had been compressed with stuffit, then transferred to AmigaDOS disks, or something.

I only have A-Max 1.0 disks physically. I think I have 2 copies.

I have 1 card & 2 carts, and multiple mac floppy drives and physical mini macs. I'll have to get a physical Amiga running to stuff the utility I guess...

I just pulled out archives of the software this week.

I do not doubt from the file size in review that DMS was unsuccssful at compressing the amax disks.

I also have 2 archives somewhere of utilities which may be what those were supposed to be...They included stuffit, binhex, disk copy, DiskDup, free virus scanner, etc.

I havn't messed with them in over a year. I have also a 6MB archive of the DMS images but will not fit on the free server.

if either of you come across the 2.5 transfer file in any format please do send!

I intend to include DMS on the site & some other files too.
Also perhaps a working hardfile in LHA format.

amigamaxx

This board has now officially annoyed me. It has required me to re-login, and my post-in-writing has been deleted 2 times! I'm copying to notepad this time!!

-back to the topic at hand-

It appears as though I was mistaken. I have a lot more A-Max disks than I thought. (over 10 total!) I also have a 2.0 manual & 2 of the 2.5 manuals. I have HD20 somewhere, too.

1. I have the File Transfer II software! I will archive & post. It's safely on my powerbook 170 hard drive. Files include Disk Transfer II, File Dump, Disk Send, and Disk Receive.

2. Installing: A-Max IV has been tested by Readysoft up to 7.1.1. It may be possible to install a newer version than that.

3. Font/DA mover (on OS setup disks - "Extras" I think) can remove some of the files & accessories from the system file to make it smaller so you can file transfer it. - Leave the default font in System (Geneva I think) but you can remove all accessories, sounds, and extra fonts. You can put in separate suitcase, transfer separately, and re-install on the Mac Side. You will need as minimum of System and Finder files in the root or in the same folder of the boot floppy to start the virtual mac. You can move the finder file out of the system folder, and put it back in to "bless" the disk & make it bootable. System Folder Icon may give indication depending on OS version.

4. The utility disks included files like archivers, SCSI tools, HD20 and Disinfectant Virus scanner. Maybe toys like Bigfoot or Eyeballs.

5. Quick down & dirty: My most painless solution was as follows: Format hardfile on A-Max IV. Load under Shapeshifter. Install OS on it from Shapeshifter. Boot for first time under A-Max. BaaaaaaM! A-MaxInit will with either A-Max IV or Shapeshifter, but not Emplant or Fusion. It must be loaded right after setpatch in the startup-sequence, and reboots your Amiga 1 time.

6. Turbo-Max: Install A-Max IV hardfile on a RAM Disk. It's faster than a real Mac!!! I used A1200/030/50Mhz/32MB RAM. ZoooooM!

7. CrossMac will help with partitioning if you want to go that route.

Grrr... it appears there are 3 versions of the file transfer software. The original, File Transfer II, and File Transfer 2.5. I can see it, but
I can't copy it! My mac spins the disk, squeeks, and suddenly
stops spinning! The 2.5 disks appear to be white in color. The older ones look really bad. I'm going to go to RS & dish out the money for a FRESH disk cleaning floppy. I've destroyed 1 floppy, I don't want to destroy another.

amigamax

I loaded the files on the web site -
Archives include 3 sets of files from 2.0 & 2.5!!

[Chuckles]

Cool! Thanks!

[Amiga-emuman]

Woo hoo! So glad you found those files. Thanks heaps amigamax!

Transferring between hard drive partitions under A-MAX2.5 now working. Now I'm going to see if I can squeese anything out of A-MAX IV but I'm doubtful that it will work as the manual seems to indicate A-MAX IV is only for the (upgraded) card (I have the cartridge). I'll try to email you a short rundown of my experience setting AMAX up on my A500 in the next few days and see if you might find it useful for your site.