How to start up an Amiga after many many years in storage?

[fluff79]

Hello,

I've recently got my old Amiga and wires etc out of its box and i'd like to set it up to see if it works and hopefully play a few games.

I understand that the computer, cables etc and/or games may not work after such a long time, but I want to give it a go. I have a CRT TV.

Has anyone got any advice, or links to other forum posts/videos which go through how someone should set up and run their Amiga after getting it out of storage for many years?

For example, assuming that it powers up would I need to do anything else like clean the disk drive?

I have looked through this forum and found some really interesting posts, but nothing that really answers my question. I'm sorry if I've missed the answers I'm looking for!

Thanks!

[nobody]

If it is a later model Amiga (600/1200) you need to change capacitors. If it is 500 plus, if you didn't remove battery then probably the motherboard is damaged. I have an old Amiga 500 1.3 and I think it needs capacitor replace in PSU (heavy brick) because its misbehaving (some times crash etc). About disks, if you kept them in a dry place most of them should have survived or else you need a way to transfer adf back to disks or buy a gotek floppy emulator. If your floppy drive is busted its better to buy a gotek instead of replacing.

[nexus]

thats a list of things to do google will help
if you run into issues after then let us know
hard to really give you any direct as we know nothing
you could have many issues or none
but always #1 thing is get rid of any batteries and/or replace
you can use button cell CR2032 or super caps
i prefer super caps myself

due to age even if everything works fine you should still replace the capacitors
and when you ever go to put it in cold storage always bust out once in awhile to do a power up
like a car engine never let them sit for too long without starting up

[fluff79]

Thanks for your quick replies. I've got an A1200. Is there meant to be a link in the post above? I will google caps / batteries. i'm afraid I don't have electronics/computer building experience!

I thought I had an A500 too. I have a lot of games for it that I don't think worked on A1200. I have another couple boxes to check later when my wife gets back from work! So I might have two machines to look at.

[fluff79]

OK, here's a short [ Show youtube player ] of me rummaging around in my boxes full of computer bits.

I think I have all the parts to my A1200. I have some bits and pieces for older Amigas, but the Amigas themselves are nowhere to be found...

[fluff79]

OK so re-capping means replacing the capacitors inside the Amiga, which have a limited life, and may leak causing further damage.

I've started to look at options for people who will do this for me, because I don't know anything about electronics.

Next question then - what are my options if I want to play my amiga games (mainly a500 some a1200) - assuming they are still working?

1 - refurbish my A1200 (but I don't think this will play many of my A500 games, or is there technology now to add on that will work around this?)

2 - buy a refurbished A500

3 - is there an option using a PC and my amiga floppy disks?

Thank you

[seuden]

Originally Posted by fluff79

1 - refurbish my A1200 (but I don't think this will play many of my A500 games, or is there technology now to add on that will work around this?)

WHDLoad.

[demolition]

Originally Posted by seuden

WHDLoad.

But he will need an accelerator with fast mem to be able to use WHDLoad.

Getting a plain A500 is probably the cheapest way, however then he will quickly discover that floppies are less reliable today than they were 20 years ago and they weren't too reliable even back then. So this is where floppy emulators come into the equation, but they are also not just plug and play. I am all for using real hardware, but if all you want is to be able to play those old games is to forget about real hardware, download FS-UAE and the games you want. You'd need to get some USB joysticks, but they are not hard to come by (or USB interfaces which allows connection of Amiga joysticks).

[fluff79]

OK WHDLoad looks cool. Definitely an option to play some games I have where there are "floppy disk images" available online. What about if I want to make images of my floppy disks especially if some of them aren't online ?

[Paulee_Bow]

There’s tools on the Aminet for that.

I have a CF hard drive in my A500+, sometimes I’ll want to make an adf into a real disk (that’s so cool and thrilling) and sometimes I’ll want to take a real disk and make an ADF.

I can’t remember the exact names, but there are plenty of tools on Aminet that can do these two opposite processes, just search for ADF on there.

[fluff79]

Originally Posted by fluff79

OK WHDLoad looks cool. Definitely an option to play some games I have where there are "floppy disk images" available online. What about if I want to make images of my floppy disks especially if some of them aren't online ?

Just to follow up on this because I have no idea what WHDLoad is:

WHDLoad wiki page says

WHDLoad is a software package for the Amiga platform to make installation of software to a hard disk easier, for such things as demos or games.

So if I understand this correctly, it's possible to take my disks, if they are working, and install them to a hard disk connected to the Amiga. The Amiga will also need extra memory to make this possible for games with more than 1 disk.


I've read WHDLoad home page, but I don't understand if it comes with any games or not - or if the point is the user needs to find the games "images" (adfs?) online, or install their own games on to it, and that WHDLoad comes "ready" to accept most amiga games?

EDIT: This thread on WHD load suggests it comes preinstalled with many games.

[fluff79]

Thanks Xanderbeanz, I'll look up Aminet and the tools that are on there tomorrow. I'd love to hear what games you like playing - send me a message or link me to it if you posted on here somewhere.

[Paulee_Bow]

Originally Posted by fluff79

Thanks Xanderbeanz, I'll look up Aminet and the tools that are on there tomorrow. I'd love to hear what games you like playing - send me a message or link me to it if you posted on here somewhere.

Hi fluff.

WHDload is a range of simple installers, you run the installer, and then put the original floppy disks in the drive one by one. It scans the disk images and saves them to hard drive, you can then run the game from Workbench. The installers, called “slaves” can be rewritten and updated to make them more stable over time.

So there I’ve just described the process from WHDload.de official website.

There’s confusingly, another website called whdownload.com which offers PREINSTALLED games, simply LHA or ZIP files that you download and plonk on your hard drive, no floppies or adf’s needed.

A lot of them work...but this site isn’t as up to date. Most of the “slaves” are from 2007 or 2013. With a 68020+ and fast ram they might work, but in 2013 no one knew that the fast 68000 A500 accelerators would be coming out, and some of these slaves are unstable on 68000 machines, and don’t support things like quitting back to workbench via a key.

So mostly, I was able to drag the preinstalled games over 8/10 times, and then for the ones that didn’t work I went and got the newest slave from the WHDLoad.de.

So, my faves, in no particular order:

Monkey Island 1&2
Flashback
Damocles
Frontier
Hunter
BC Kid (best platformer on Amiga???)
Bubba n stix
Road Rash
Hybris

I think most people will tell you these games are pretty good/classics

[demolition]

One thing worth noticing here is that WHDLoad always needs the ORIGINAL game floppies, so cracked versions / ADFs cannot be used. But as mentioned, you can just download preinstalled images so you don't have to bother with any floppies. This is what most people do. There are packages with 2000+ games out there that you just extract to a CF card and then you got enough games to keep you occupied for a few days.

[fluff79]

Thanks again xanderbeanz for this great explanation!

So it looks like I could get my A1200 fixed up and capable of running WHD load with a hard disk etc. to run my games.

I'll look through the games out there that are already pre-installed. I expect most of my games are.

I still need to look up Gotek floppy emulator and AMinet tools...


I also love Frontier and Monkey Islands! I haven't played any of the others. I will look them up too.

My favourites include:

RPGs like Might and Magics, Ultimas and Dragonflight
Speedball 2
Sierra games like Hero's quest and King's quest

and being fascinated by bizarre games like Kult and Captain Blood!

[fluff79]

@demolition

so I was wondering how I would get WHD load and preinsalled images from internet on to an amiga. Would this be through a CF card attached to PC connected to internet, then after plug the card in to an amiga slot to transfer to its hard disk?

I have seen one or two you tube tutorials with WHD load as a subject

[Paulee_Bow]

Hi fluff. You need to find a tutorial on how to format an Amiga CF card in WiNUAE on Windows, using a USB CF reader. It’s hard and I can’t find the guide, hopefully someone can help on this thread.

Anyhow, once you have this you can mount it WINUAE as DH0, and also mount a normal Windows directory (folder) as DH1, then drag the files across.

Then you’ll put your CF card in a CF to IDE adapter (which A1200’s can use easily, but A500’s need something like the HC533 I bought) and load it onto the Amiga.

I have mine set up so my CF card boots exactly the same (a nice teal workbench) on my Amiga or the Emulator on my modern PC which blows my mind

[demolition]

Yeah, it is probably best to check out some tutorials on how to transfer those files. There are two places where you can connect a CF card to the Amiga. Either it can be attached to the internal IDE header and function as a harddrive. Before this will work, it needs to be partitioned and formatted for the Amiga and this is where WinUAE comes into play. Alternatively a CF card can also be connected to the PCMCIA slot and here you do not need to reformat the card (but it will not boot from it). You just leave it with a FAT partition and then you use a card reader and Windows to transfer the files you need. Here there is a chicken and egg problem though since the Amiga will not read the CF card from the PCMCIA slot unless you install CFD (compactflash.device) and FAT95 (filesystem driver). Both of these are found on Aminet.

But look at some guides and figure out which path makes the most sense to you. Once you have a system booting with the proper drivers, moving files back and forth are quite simple.

[BrooksterMax]

I'm a huge fan of the A1200 but am now very impressed with an A500/+ and a Gotek drive with Flash Floppy firmware.

Now that I can use save disks without issue from Cannon Fodder/SWOS etc. on a Gotek with FF firmware (Cortex didn't really work), the A500 and Gotek covers most of my gaming needs. Also playing ADFs with cracktros is pretty cool too that you wouldn't see when using whdload.

But have the best of both if you can!

[demolition]

Originally Posted by BrooksterMax

Also playing ADFs with cracktros is pretty cool too that you wouldn't see when using whdload.

Good thing is that some of the popular cracktros can still be run with WHDLoad as they have been released as separate slaves. Then you can also watch your favorite cracktros on high-end Amigas which may not have been able to run the original versions.

http://www.whdload.de/ctros/alla.html