New Dumping Disk

[fiath]

Originally posted by killergorilla
What speed are we looking at for a parallel port? I'm buying a new (2nd hand) Amiga next week and was considering connecting it to my PC for data transfer.

Okay, but not great. About the speed of a floppy disk drive maybe? As above, look in the PC2Amiga docs, it has speeds for serial, 4-wire parallel and 8-wire parallel (but you have to make the 8-wire one yourself as it is non-standard).

The comp I'm buying also has a fast serial port I believe, any chance that this would be faster than parallel transfer? (Not sure which model it is though)

Unlikely, AFAIK you get a maximum of 115200 bits/s (10KB/s in practice) with serial. But it may not go that high on the Amiga, 57600 (5KB/s in practice) is more likely.

Laplink parallel on the other hand can theoretically do 0.7Mbps (700000 bps) on a PC though you would never be able to get this out of the Amiga's parallel port. I think you can best hope for about 20-30 KB/s.

I get 115200 with serial but I also benefit the GUI of Amiga Explorer. Is pc2amiga any better?

[killergorilla]

Sounds like I'd be better sticking to CDR for PC > Amiga, and I'll probably stick to floppies from Amiga > PC.

When it comes to CAPS images or other larger files, I think I'll keep using MakeCD. It's not the best thing in the world but it's 10 times faster than those speeds.

I'm not looking forward to backing up my Amiga HD at the end of setting it all up. That should be fun.

Oh well!

[fiath]

Well, I use a PCMCIA network card which I bought for £15. Works like a charm and gives me about 220 KB/s over FTP.

Setting that up can be a pain though.

[killergorilla]

I've decided to go for a Zip Drive for my PC. There are tonnes of 100MB drives on eBay for under £15. I'll grab myself one of those and use it that way.

At last I'll be able to do some more CAPS backups to help you guys. I did do around 10 ages ago but I stopped because my 16MB Ram SIMM died on it's ass.

[IFW]

Thanks KG.
We all know the pain of dying hw/sw

[andreas]

A big thumbs down.

You really cut off your nose to spite your face with those "practices".
What use does a CAPS dumping tool for A500/A1000 users make?

None at all. Because I won't equip my old boy with an 68020 or expansion board containing an 68020 + or whatever just because of ONE tool.

Sorry, but it's plain and simple: if you don't try developing a tool suitable for us A500/1000 users (and there are MANY, because [even nowadays] not everyone can afford an A3000 or A4000!), you will have to live without our support.

That's by no means an attempt to blackmail you, but simply plain facts.

[fiath]

Andreas, do you think there might just have been a reason for this? As you say, we are effectively excluding a HUGE amount of people from dumping their disks with the C.A.P.S. tool because it has to have at least a 68020...

Well, there certainly is a reason, and that is that you CAN NOT do what we need to do to get all the information from a disk on a plain 68000. This is simply plain facts.

There are very sound technical reasons for it, but apart from anything else, it is EXTREAMLY complicated. Why do you think all this has not been done before now? A 68000 (or 68010) does not have the processing grunt.

We didn't to it to exlude anyone, we did it because we had no choice. THERE IS NO OTHER WAY. If it would have worked on a 68000 (even if it took lots of effort), don't you think we would have supported it? We have spent nearly two years on this, so a little longer would not have made a difference.

Your right though, we will have to do without your support. But as we have absolutely no choice, there is not really much point in worrying about it is there?

Please don't jump to conclusions in future. All of this is explained in the documents that come with the tool. If you have a query, then just ask. We seem to answer pretty quick on here.

Basically, asking "Why don't you support plain 68000's?" might have been a bit nicer IMO.

[IFW]

There is no way to make it *reliably* work on a 68000 (unless cpu is seriously overclocked...), the bus/cpu combination is way too slow. Otherwise it would be working on it right now.

The blackmail is a cheap nice try, but *nobody* so far *actively contributing* to the project has only an a500 without any sort of cpu upgrade etc. You don't need an a3000 or an a4000 either. All you need is a 68ec20 cpu or better and about 2mb ram. The year is 2003 right now posting this
An a1200 or something similar is literally thrown into the waste these days, unless they are towered etc.
Especially in Germany and the UK, just ebay should give machines literally selling for nothing if they don't have original games, monitor etc added to the package, to enhance the "sale" somehow.
Not to mention carboot sales where most of that stuff is collected from in the first place, exchanged for records, a few euros or whatever suitable.

If someone is really an Amiga nut, that should pose no problem to get a machine that is suitable for the task. This is somewhat different in the US I think, where a1200s are very rare, but big box amigas are not, and the dumping tool works perfectly on big box amigas as well.
A lot of effort went into making a reliable tool, that works in the long run and uses as little resources as is possible given the task.

Feel free to delete your rant as it is not based on knowing the circumstances - and feel free to ask next time as Mr. Fiath wrote

Finally: a big thumb down for C= for making a machine not suitable for real time signal processing in 1985

[Duke]

I have the Blizzard Turbo Memory Board in my A500, it uses a 68000 with 14 MHz and 2 MB Fast RAM, which are directly connected to the cpu (so the speed should be very fast). Sysinfo says the memory speed is better than an A1200 with 2 MB Chip Mem . Maybe it will work?

[IFW]

Yes I think *that* config definitely should do the trick, may need a slightly different core to get rid of 020 specific stuff, but the bus speed imo should be pretty much up to the task.
Do you have any means of using pc2amiga or something to make sure that you can transfer the images? Dumping directly to hdd can be done, but it is very dangerous see above why.
If you have some means of transferring the resulting images (please test first), I think we can give it a try!
Please get in contact if you are serious about this.

[Duke]

Does PC2Amiga work in 2k or XP? I think i have tried it and failed. I've used PC2Amiga with a Lap-Link cable to transfer disk images when i still had Win 98, now i'm using the Amiga Explorer from Cloanto with a Nullmodem cable.

Anyway, I would be glad to contribute my collection, i have about 120 original game disks (though not always with Box & Manual, but the disk should help if another dump is damaged or something like that).

[IFW]

Fiath can possibly be more helpful on XP issues with pc2amiga, than myself.
I think there is some kind of port emulator or compatibility setting is required on XP as pc2amiga hits certain parallel port lines directly (for a very nice speed effect).

Alternate transfering methods can be utilised, like:
local network access
some more ram (about plus 6mb) to dump to hd
serial connection, though it will be slow (see above how slow)
someone might give a try to use a faster serial link, like baud bandit (?)
burning cds

Possible anything that I can't think of right now...

But pc2amiga through parallel could be the cheapest and easiest solution.

Fiath?

[fiath]

Yes, PC2Amiga does work on XP/2K, but it seems people are getting mixed results. It works perfectly for me. But I guess it may need a bit of tweeking.

Remember though, that you need Amiga OS 2+ for PC2Amiga to work... Do you have OS2+ in your A500?

If so, I will try to help you get it working. There are many things you can try, but I think it is more a case of trying each one.

I don't know anything about Amiga Explorer, but you might be able to use that. Caan you mount the PC side as a normal device on your Amiga? We would need to add support for it on the dumping disk (not the Cloanto files though, but maybe with instructions on where to copy them).

Anyway, if you want to have a go, we can start trying to get your A500/PC setup working now with PC2Amiga (in preperation) or otherwise perhaps have a go getting Amiga Explorer going (if that is even possible)...

[IFW]

You can use any amiga device (in the sense of driver) so long you can use it as a standard way with the AmigaOS and the device itself does not depend on timing tricks.
pc2amiga in this sense is very nicely done, though you get some lost packets, but it can recover very nicely. Actually you can get rid of reporting lost packets and you won't even notice.
Dumped images contain a lot of crc32 checks for validity and I can safely say it is a very well written sw as real transfer errors rarely if ever occur.

[andreas]

Originally posted by fiath
We didn't to it to exlude anyone, we did it because we had no choice. THERE IS NO OTHER WAY. If it would have worked on a 68000 (even if it took lots of effort), don't you think we would have supported it?

Not necessarily, there might have been a theoretical explanation that you never tried it on an 68000 Amiga, assuming, "Amigas are that cheap now, we just assume that the gross of people has a 68020 Amiga." However, taking a closer look at the ratio of A500/1000/2000 users to A1200/3000/4000 users, the latter group will make the minority. I AM SURE about this, even though I never took it upon myself to actually prove this assumption of mine.

Basically, asking "Why don't you support plain 68000's?" might have been a bit nicer IMO.

Nicer yes, but you could just have asked via mail if I own an 68020 + Amiga and even save YOURSELF some work by not sending the dumping tools in case I only have an 68000 Amiga.
Instead, I felt like a little child full of excitement unpacking its Christmas present, read the README and every lineament in my face suddenly changed: UH.
That might be the reason of my negative reaction (at this very crucial instant), whereas I would certainly react differently now.

[Duke]

Originally posted by fiath
Remember though, that you need Amiga OS 2+ for PC2Amiga to work... Do you have OS2+ in your A500?

Yes, I'm using Kickstart & Workbench 3.1 in my A500 (Like I said in my previous posting, i was using PC2Amiga for quite a while with Win98 )

I don't know anything about Amiga Explorer, but you might be able to use that. Caan you mount the PC side as a normal device on your Amiga? We would need to add support for it on the dumping disk (not the Cloanto files though, but maybe with instructions on where to copy them).

I don't think the Amiga Explorer will be useful here, it just makes all Amiga devices available to the PC as drives, you can't access the PC files from the Amiga side.

I'm not at home the next 2 days, but I will try to get PC2Amiga working this weekend.

[fiath]

Originally posted by andreas
Not necessarily, there might have been a theoretical explanation that you never tried it on an 68000 Amiga, assuming, "Amigas are that cheap now, we just assume that the gross of people has a 68020 Amiga."

Really not something we are likely to do. We did it because it was necessary, but we had no choice anyway.

However, taking a closer look at the ratio of A500/1000/2000 users to A1200/3000/4000 users, the latter group will make the minority. I AM SURE about this, even though I never took it upon myself to actually prove this assumption of mine.

You might be right, but it does not change the fact that it can't be done.

Nicer yes, but you could just have asked via mail if I own an 68020 + Amiga and even save YOURSELF some work by not sending the dumping tools in case I only have an 68000 Amiga.

Strangely enough, this was the first time I have EVER done that. I usually send only the requirements document and go from there. As I said in my mail to you, I was very busy (I was just heading upstairs to feed my daughter) and so, to get you the tool soon (i.e not for another day otherwise) I sent you the full package that included requirements doc anyway.

Nevermind. Sorry for trying to get it to you sooner rather than later...

Instead, I felt like a little child full of excitement unpacking its Christmas present, read the README and every lineament in my face suddenly changed: UH.
That might be the reason of my negative reaction (at this very crucial instant), whereas I would certainly react differently now.

Okay, I understand. Sorry Santa didn't quite bring you the prezzie you wanted.

Other than that, what I said still stands. Even if we really really really wanted to we couldn't do it and expect the dumps to work.

Just of of interest, if we did have a tool working on A500's how on earth would you either contain the dumps, and transfer them to a PC? These guys are *at least* 3Mb but can be up to 10Mb in some rare circumstances.

CD burning: no way on a500
internet: no way on a500
using pc2amiga: no way on a500
dumping to hd: not on a vanilla a500
pcmcia network card: not on an a500

?

The conclusion is even if you could dump the games, you wouldn't have the means to transfer the results, so it would be a fairly pointless exercise anyway. Unless you have any ideas?

If you are not dumping straight to another computer you need 6Mb of RAM to dump disks (even if you have an HD).

Again, unfortunately, this is unavoidable. If we could make it possible - we would .

On the other hand if your a500 is souped up somehow, like with a cpu card, then you definitely can use the dumping tool right now anyway. We are not talking of a3000 or a4000 machines here, just bare bone standard dirt cheap amiga models - unless you can only import a working machine from the Uk to Hungary in that case the posting fee is well known to be much more, than the
machine itself

On the other hand if you are located in the Uk or Germany we do have members who can dump and return needed games. We just don't like doing that unless absolutely necessary.

[fiath]

Originally posted by Duke
Yes, I'm using Kickstart & Workbench 3.1 in my A500 (Like I said in my previous posting, i was using PC2Amiga for quite a while with Win98 )

I thought this might be the case, but I just wanted to check

I don't think the Amiga Explorer will be useful here, it just makes all Amiga devices available to the PC as drives, you can't access the PC files from the Amiga side.

Okay. Thanks.

I'm not at home the next 2 days, but I will try to get PC2Amiga working this weekend.

Okay. Well, there are some recent threads on here with really good tips. If you can't get it to work from them, then I will try to find that Win2K/XP legacy parallel driver you can use PC2Amiga with... It worked for me, but I didn't need it in the end anyway.

[andreas]

Originally posted by fiath
The conclusion is even if you could dump the games, you wouldn't have the means to transfer the results, so it would be a fairly pointless exercise anyway. Unless you have any ideas?

Of course: in compressed form it could indeed work with my A1000 + Golem box. (2 MB RAM)

If you are not dumping straight to another computer you need 6Mb of RAM to dump disks (even if you have an HD).

YIKES! 6 MB! Values getting more and more, huh?

On the other hand if your a500 is souped up somehow, like with a cpu card, then you definitely can use the dumping tool right now anyway.

I thought so ... with an expansion card it would be possible. But my A500 is unusable right now ... I only have my A1000 atm.