Just bought my first Amiga. I have many questions :)

Hi All,

I've finally pulled the trigger on getting an Amiga after wanting one for many years. Back in the early 90s, I was the proud owner of a C64C but was always a bit jealous of a few of my friends who had Amiga 500 machines (one even had an Atari ST ). We played SWOS, Kick Off 2, Rainbow Islands and many more for countless hours, however I never actually owned one. Instead of upgrading to an Amiga, my parents bought us a 486 dx2 PC which I used to play a lot of the Amiga ports like Worms etc.

Fast forward 25 odd years and I find myself still wanting one, however I'm very much into the Arcade scene and own 6 machine in varying degrees of functionality. So most of my tinkering time gets taken up with them.

At the moment though, we are in the middle of a house move and my machines are going to stay in storage for a while, so what better time to grab an Amiga to play with.

So what have I bought? I managed to get a boxed Cartoon Classics Amiga 500 Plus with tank mouse and all the accessories (no games though), for a pretty good price on eBay.

The machine is really clean inside, which is surprising because the original battery was still in place. I've snipped that out so there is no chance of battery acid eating up the board.

I've also bought an RGB to Scart cable and a Gotek floppy emulator from Amiga Kit.

The disk drive works ok, but I hardly have any discs to mess around withs I've installed the Gotek in its place temporarily (without harming the Amiga I may add) so I can try out some software.

I'm new to the many configurations of the Amiga but I've learnt quite a bit in the last few weeks, however I have a few questions that someone maybe able to answer for me:

1. I've noticed that there used to be a product on Amiga kit that allowed you to soft switch/auto switch between two kick start roms when resetting the Amiga with Ctrl+Amiga+Amiga combination of buttons. However, this no longer seems to be available. Is there anyone that sells a similar product to this? I would like to switch between v1.3 and v2.0 Kickstart roms.

2. I have a physical copy and Gog.com copy of Swos 96/97 for the PC, however I wanted to get a version for the Amiga as I hear that the gameplay is slightly better and has slightly better/different ball physics. eBay prices for the game are pretty extortionate so I thought as I own the game already (twice) I'd grab an ADF of the game (HFUK/Heat crack). I've got it to run on the Gotek, but one thing that is bugging me is that the crowd chants are always the same, over and over again. I've verified that by running the ADF on WinUAE and the same thing happens. Could this be a bad dump of the game? I'm struggling to find a good copy of this and I really don't want to pay eBay prices for a game I own twice already on a different platform. Is there anywhere I can get a good copy of this?

3. I was giving the Kick Off 2 Enhanced adf a try on my 500 plus, however it doesn't load correctly (it gets stuck on the Kick Off 2 splash screen). It is the same on WinUAE withKickstart 2.0 but if I set it to 1.3 it loads ok. Does Kick Off 2 enhanced only work with 1.3 or again is this a bad dump?

4. I can't remember how we managed back in the 90s, but is there a way for the mouse to be plugged in at the same time as two joysticks, or do you have to swap the player 2 joystick with the mouse each time you want a 2 player game. Or is there a modern adapter with a switch?

Apologies for the long post, but I'm pretty new to the Amiga scene and I'm trying to learn as much as I can

[chip]

I'm sorry i can't help you with the question, since i use ONLY emulation

But i can welcome you to the forum

[Nobby_UK]

1. Tuxbar81 in France (See AmiBay) still does them --- bit of a wait though.
4. On Ebay for £12 + 1.50 pnp.

[desiv]

Welcome!!

Originally Posted by Shun

1. I've noticed that there used to be a product on Amiga kit that allowed you to soft switch/auto switch between two kick start roms when resetting the Amiga with Ctrl+Amiga+Amiga combination of buttons. However, this no longer seems to be available. Is there anyone that sells a similar product to this? I would like to switch between v1.3 and v2.0 Kickstart roms.

You do still see kickstart switchers on ebay from time to time.
You might want to wait on that to see what you use your Amiga for mostly...
I have also seen some type of flash based kickstart on ebay, which implies to me that you can change it, but not sure how. I haven't looked into those.
In addition, if you have a kick2.x A500, then you can "degrade" whenever you need to using a floppy (Relokick).
I have a kick switcher in my 500, but honestly I almost never used it when I was using my A500. Without a HD, I'm not sure of the real value of kick 2.x personally. (I'm sure others will disagree with me..)

Originally Posted by Shun

2. I have a physical copy and Gog.com copy of Swos 96/97 for the PC, ....

Sorry, not too familar with that series... ;-(

Originally Posted by Shun

3. I was giving the Kick Off 2 Enhanced adf ....

Sorry again... Not sure

Originally Posted by Shun

4. I can't remember how we managed back in the 90s, but is there a way for the mouse to be plugged in at the same time as two joysticks, or do you have to swap the player 2 joystick with the mouse each time you want a 2 player game. Or is there a modern adapter with a switch?

I know they made mouse/joystick auto switchers. I have seen them on e-bay from time to time...

Which firmware do you have on your Gotek? There are 3 options.
The original Cortex (only does adf files), and FlashFloppy or HxC that both do ADF and HFE (some better compatibility) files. And have some other options.
Not a big deal, but just wondering. I just added an OLED (alpha 2 line) display, speaker, and rotary encoder (dial) to mine using FlashFloppy. Still have to find a nice way to mount it.

Have fun!!!

Originally Posted by chip

I'm sorry i can't help you with the question, since i use ONLY emulation

But i can welcome you to the forum

Thank you for the welcome

Originally Posted by Nobby_UK

1. Tuxbar81 in France (See AmiBay) still does them --- bit of a wait though.
4. On Ebay for £12 + 1.50 pnp.

Thanks for that. I'll have a look.

Originally Posted by desiv

Which firmware do you have on your Gotek? There are 3 options.
The original Cortex (only does adf files), and FlashFloppy or HxC that both do ADF and HFE (some better compatibility) files. And have some other options.
Not a big deal, but just wondering. I just added an OLED (alpha 2 line) display, speaker, and rotary encoder (dial) to mine using FlashFloppy. Still have to find a nice way to mount it.

Have fun!!!

My Gotek has the Flash Floppy firmware and has an OLED screen.
I've mounted it successfully using the original screws and mounting points. I removed the top and front of the Gotek and it fits nicely. Just have to extend the wire for the Oled display and mount it somewhere and find a place to put the buttons.

Do you guys know where I can find these HFE game files?

[desiv]

Originally Posted by Shun

Do you guys know where I can find these HFE game files?

Not sure if there is an archive of HFE files (I haven't seen any).
But you can convert IPF to HFE using the HxC tools (You can download from the HxC site).
And there are a fair amount of IPF files all over.
(I know there is/was a torrent with most of them floating around.)

Originally Posted by desiv

Not sure if there is an archive of HFE files (I haven't seen any).
But you can convert IPF to HFE using the HxC tools (You can download from the HxC site).
And there are a fair amount of IPF files all over.
(I know there is/was a torrent with most of them floating around.)

Great thanks! I'll give it a try

[jotd]

the zone contains a lot of IPF files lately. But you can find a lot of cracks of most popular games on all "abandonware" sites, there are even legal dumps.

Someone "switching" to amiga in 2018 that's just great. You'll only see the good side of the thing if you use it only for gaming.

Originally Posted by jotd

the zone contains a lot of IPF files lately. But you can find a lot of cracks of most popular games on all "abandonware" sites, there are even legal dumps.

Someone "switching" to amiga in 2018 that's just great. You'll only see the good side of the thing if you use it only for gaming.

Thanks, I'll have a look in the Zone as well.

I'm trying to use HxCFloppyEmulator to convert IPF files to HFE files, however it won't open IPF files. I get "Load error! Read file error!"

I'm using a Macbook, so I'm using OS X. I've gone to http://www.softpres.org/download and grabbed the latest version for OS X and i've copied the CAPSImage.framework file to Library/Frameworks and also copied it to the folder where the HxCFloppyEmulator app is but its still not working.

Does anyone know what I am doing wrong?

[desiv]

Originally Posted by Shun

I'm trying to use HxCFloppyEmulator to convert IPF files to HFE files, however it won't open IPF files. I get "Load error! Read file error!"

Oh, not a problem, that is almost always just a question of copying the right DLL into the...

Originally Posted by Shun

I'm using a Macbook, so I'm using OS X. I've gone to

Oh, Mac? Sorry..
Not a Mac user.. ;-(
There are Mac users on this forum tho, so good luck! ;-)
With Windows, I think I had to make sure I copied 32-bit DLL as the HxCFloppyEmulator program was 32-bit.
And the 64-bit version for WinUAE or vice versa. It's been a while..
Probably doesn't help with a Mac..

[redblade]

If you have kickstart 2, and are downloading games from abandonware site, download the fixed, patched if you want to run it on your A500+. Most games after 91 should have been coded properly and work ok on A500+.