Some "oldie" questions ...

Hi everybody,

I am not really new to Amiga - i'm just taking quite long breaks inbetween ;-)

I remember some names, I do see here, from long ago, like Twisting Ghost ... anybody remembers "Godflesh's FTP"?

Well, in the meantime I managed to transfer all my Amiga disks - about 500 - to ADF (yes, I'm slow ;-)

I wanted to invest much more work in the Amiga - I had plans about an giant database - like a combination of HOL and TOSEC including WinUAE configs - but as reality teaches me, I simply do not have the time to do so.

I did some investigation into actual Amiga scene already about 8 month ago.

I found a well developing WinUAE, TOSEC, CAPS, HOL, clrmamePro - and was very amazed about the advances. Aditionally I managed to get a a quite up-to-date and complete TOSEC collection.

I want to do two things:
1. I want to find out whether there are some unknown or rare games in my personal collection.
2. I want to manage my collection of amiga ADFs (personal plus TOSEC and others). "Manage" means - I want to identify them, kill dublicates, kill - if possible - bad copys and start them easily with WinUAE.

So, now for my questions:

What is the best way to compare my personal ADF collection against TOSEC? I stored them in ADZ format. 8 Month ago "ClrmamPro" seemed to me to be the best tool for comparing and managing a TOSEC collection, after testing all tools I found - RomDoctor and all the others I stumbled across. The Problem at that time was, that ClrMamePro could not read the ADZ format - so I have to unpack all images again manually. Aditionally, I don't really like ClrMamePro *g*

What is the most complete list of amiga games? TOSEC? HOL? back2roots? Any other?

Is there an offline version of "HOL"? I really like their work - it's admirable what they have achieved. But somehow it's a pity that they do not give the database away for personal use. I would like to access it offline - and maybe, if time permits - build a database interface between HOL and TOSEC. But I respect their "Do not leech".

Is there any _existing_ database that lets me start ADFs or CAPS-files with a correct configuration in UAE?

Is there any bugfree and comfortable tool to look into ADFs from within MS Windows or Linux? I found DOpus for Windows, but it doesn't seem to be related to Amiga anymore.

Well, that's all for now. I do not need detailed explanations - hints or links would be enough.

oh ... ehm ... and am I right supposing that AmigaInABox is discontinued?

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by bluebox

I remember some names, I do see here, from long ago, like Twisting Ghost ... anybody remembers "Godflesh's FTP"?

Oh man, yes, unfortunately

Were you in the Emulation Talk forums or something? i think I recall your nick. Probably from Godflesh boards.

Welcome aboard.

Hi Akira,

"unfortunately"? Is it still not allowed to mention his name? Sorry for that - it's many ... ehm ... many many years ago.

I do not recall the name of his board, but we had some discussions there about the use of "real Amigas" against "emulators". Some months later several people left Gofleshs Forum and EAB was founded. I lost time and contact shortly afterwards. I looked into EAB some months later again but I kept getting kicked because of not enough or to rare postings and was annoyed (nothing I want to criticise here).

Most likely I will meet the same fate this time, but some short answers to my questions would be appreciated :-)

Originally Posted by bluebox

What is the best way to compare my personal ADF collection against TOSEC? I stored them in ADZ format. 8 Month ago "ClrmamPro" seemed to me to be the best tool for comparing and managing a TOSEC collection, after testing all tools I found - RomDoctor and all the others I stumbled across. The Problem at that time was, that ClrMamePro could not read the ADZ format - so I have to unpack all images again manually. Aditionally, I don't really like ClrMamePro *g*

ClrMamePro is the only real way to go. I messed around with the other renamers and found this one the quickest and fullest solution, and it's easy once you get into it. Not sure about the ADZ issue, but why not just have the standard zipped ADF's ?

Originally Posted by bluebox

Is there any bugfree and comfortable tool to look into ADFs from within MS Windows or Linux? I found DOpus for Windows, but it doesn't seem to be related to Amiga anymore.

ADF Opus - http://adfopus.sourceforge.net/

Originally Posted by bluebox

oh ... ehm ... and am I right supposing that AmigaInABox is discontinued?

Looking at the AIAB forum http://aiab.emuunlim.com/bin/wwwboard/index.html it don't look like it!

Originally Posted by Jim

ClrMamePro is the only real way to go. I messed around with the other renamers and found this one the quickest and fullest solution, and it's easy once you get into it. Not sure about the ADZ issue, but why not just have the standard zipped ADF's ?

Yes - ClrMamePro looked to me like the best solution, too. But not a perfect one. It's not made for Amiga files and some Mame stuff confused me. Aditionally I had to load every single TOSEC file manually, create a subdirectory for it and let it search for that specific TOSEC sub-collection. Not perfect, but the best one I could find.

ADZs were the best way to store your ADFs compressed some times ago. ZIP support is quite ... ehm ... new to WinUAE. Looks like I have to do a script to unpack my ADZs and run ClrMamePro over it.

Originally Posted by Jim

ADF Opus - http://adfopus.sourceforge.net/

I know it. Last updated February 2003. Is it still buggy?

Originally Posted by Jim

Looking at the AIAB forum http://aiab.emuunlim.com/bin/wwwboard/index.html it don't look like it!

Well, James is still active in the forum, but the last update dates 2002 and James states:
"Partly because I have lost interest in Amiga emulation, and partly because I do not have a great deal of free time after I return from work... then what is left available I usually spend studying Japanese.

Sorry, but that's just the way it is ;(

James"

Originally Posted by bluebox

I know it. Last updated February 2003. Is it still buggy?

Best I know of, yeah it's not the prettiest thing or nicest to use.

Originally Posted by bluebox

Well, James is still active in the forum, but the last update dates 2002 and James states:
"Partly because I have lost interest in Amiga emulation, and partly because I do not have a great deal of free time after I return from work... then what is left available I usually spend studying Japanese.

Sorry, but that's just the way it is ;(

James"

Yeah, but if you look at post immediately above that he states: "Hopefully, once I get a net connection at home, I can upload some of the newer stuff that's sitting on my PC".

So the project isn't exactly dead, but it isn't breathing very well either. Sounds like this James guy doesn't quite know what to do with his baby. But I personally think if the guy wanted to ditch the project he would stop completely. Whilst the author is still contributing in the forums the project still lives - who knows, one day he might get this net connection

Originally Posted by Jim

So the project isn't exactly dead, but it isn't breathing very well either. Sounds like this James guy doesn't quite know what to do with his baby. But I personally think if the guy wanted to ditch the project he would stop completely.

Well, I really liked it. As I started it first time with WinUAE, it looked better than my Amiga4000 ever did. But anyways - it's still very good. Maybe it's better not to change good things until they go bad :-)

[RCK]

Originally Posted by bluebox

Is there an offline version of "HOL"? I really like their work - it's admirable what they have achieved. But somehow it's a pity that they do not give the database away for personal use.

One HOL offline version is currently in work, it will be release "when it's done"
Moreover, one huge upgrade should be done to the actual HOL user interface in a few months.

Originally Posted by Kodoichi

RomCenter. CLRMamePro sucks.

Well, I will have a look at RomCenter again. I didn't understand it completely as I tried it first time.

Originally Posted by Kodoichi

ADFView?

Are you using it? I tried it some ... uhm ... years ago. It was quite buggy. The homepage says, it's dating from Jan.2001.

Originally Posted by RCK

One HOL offline version is currently in work, it will be release "when it's done"

That's cool:-) You could distribute it via P2P networks - this would save your bandwidth.