Amiga <> PC with Parallel cable

[manicx]

What I've done to make this work in my winXP PC, is to boot in DOS with a floppy, use NTFSDos to mount the NTFS HD as FAT32 and use PC2Amiga. It works like a dream.

[Jope]

Originally Posted by manicx

What I've done to make this work in my winXP PC, is to boot in DOS with a floppy, use NTFSDos to mount the NTFS HD as FAT32 and use PC2Amiga. It works like a dream.

Yes, it's more stable under DOS, as it doesn't get interrupted by multitasking, like it does in Windows.

The only reason I liked to run it under Win (98 at the time) was, that it does long filenames under Windows.

[Syko]

"Xp and the parallel port dont work like previous OS's .. It has port protection or summat that stops the likes of PC2AM working"

Found this one out after lots of swearing now have a 98 machine set up for parallel, still trying to get Siamese system working right under 95... keeps crashing on the miggy side

Hi all,

Fscinating thread guys, just thought as a visitor I could lend some help.

I also am using PCtoAmiga via the parellel ports to move data, it's a bit slow but speed didn't bother me, reliability is what I wanted, that way I could leave it moving files overnight. Win 95/98 are fine, but XP is a pain for this, but I have a total fix detailed here.

I have done a lot of lengthy messing around to finally get this working reliably with XP and are happy to document it here, especially if it saves anyone else doing loads of leg work. I can confirm that it now works seamlessly, reliably and accurately.

First up, it WILL work with WinXP (contrary to poular belief), admittedly XP causes problems because it puts a software layer between the port and DOS to kinda 'protect' them, and that has to be broken through. Software hacks like GiveIO and UserPort (search google) can open the ports but it really isn't necessary to go to that much trouble for PCtoAmiga to work, after installation on both machines just do the following:

On the PC side use ONLY the executable called PCtoAmiga.exe, don't use any other of the other myriad of options installed.

Double click it once and it will through up an empty DOS window and won't work, but don't worry, simply double click it again to run the executable a second time, this time it WILL work and show some dialougue to confirm. Then you can close the first window (end task) and leave the second window active (or minimised if you prefer)

Over to the Amiga now, run the appropriate program there (MountPC4KS3 for Kickstart 3 users, MountPC4KS2 for Kickstart 2 users), after a few seconds an icon will appear on the Amiga Workbench called PCDISK, double clicking this will reveal all the drives in the PC ready for you to access and shove files to and from.

Now although you have a connection, it is still not perfect, because on the Amiga side it will occasionally throw up a dialogue box saying something about can't move data for too long time (?), and it will have a Retry icon to click, clicking the re-try icon will re-establish the connection and no data will be lost, but this is hardly ideal, because you have to be there to click it every few minutes! And I personally wanted to leave it moving files relaibly whilst I busied myslef with other things. But never fear, this is fixable too! Read on.

After installation on the Amiga, go to Workbench:Storage/DOSDrivers/ and in there will be a icon simply called 'PC' (you'll need 'Show all' active on the window), right click it and open it with a text editor (like EditPad in WB3.5), scroll down until you see the text 'Surfaces = 10' and change this number to 2.
Now scroll further down until the end where you sould see text 'HighCyl = 20' change this number to '1'.
Now save the file overwriting the original. You have now altered the timeout and mount funtions, don't worry too much about the technicalities, it'll work.

Now you will find that PCtoAmiga will no longer throw up error boxes or Retry requesters, it will just keep on moving the data without complaint! For hours at a time! Cool! We're getting there, but there's more (sorry).

As it stands at the moment it will work, but it won't recognise long file names which both Amiga and XP are capable of, this is because PCtoAmiga doesn't recognise how XP's DOS handles it, coz it's different to 95/98, so all files will resort to the irritating 8.3 format (8 character name plus 3 character extension after the dot), but this is also fixable! Read on.....

To fix this, you need to dig into XP on the PC, but don't worry, if you follow the guide it should be quite safe:

Go into My Computer and get into 'Windows' (ignoring all the "No! You musn't!" nags) and find the config.sys file, it'll be here:

C:Windows\system32\CONFIG.NT

Now opn the CONFIG.NT file with a suitable text editor and add the follwing line right at the end of all the text (use cut n' paste if you prefer):

device=%SystemRoot%\system32\setver.exe

And save the file, overwriting the original

Nearly there, not quite finished yet. Now click the Windoze 'Start' button and select 'Run' and type in cmd.exe in the requester, this will throw up a DOS box with a cursor prompt.

At the cursor prompt write the following (use cut n' paste if you prefer):

setver.exe PC2AMIGA.EXE 7.10 [Return]

Once it's done it's stuff, close the requester.


* Now re-boot both machines to make all the changes effective *

Run the 'PC2Amiga' executable on the PC twice as explained above, close the first empty DOS window, leave the seccond one active (you'll see two lines of text in it, one confirming the PC <-> Amiga link and the other confirming the use of long file names), Now turn to the Amiga and run MountPC4KS3 (or 2) and an icon will appear on Workbench as before showing all the PC drives.


Now you can move files as much as you like using Opus or whatever, it should be totally reliable and all long file names will be supported seamlessly.


I have personaly tested all these changes on my own machines and assuming you carry out EVERY change I have explained above then I can confirm it's total reliability, it has just finished moving over 80Mb of data for me whilst I slept!

I really hope this post saves anyone else having problems, and speeds up the set-up of PCtoAmiga using XP for anyone reading.

Incidently, the software and the appropriate specially wired parallel cable are available together from where I got mine, at: http://www.butterfly-media.co.uk. Incidently they actaully state in their blurb that it won't work with XP, so I am going to forward them this text so hopefully they can put it on a Read-me file for anyone else using XP.

Cheers for reading,

Regards,

Greg (A total Amiga obsessive!)

[Syko]

Cheers for that Greg, that's one of the best bits of advice I've seen, and it works perfectly! You're a star!

Why not join the board, we like people who can contribute... and we don't bite, honest

Just realised, I've spent the last 45mins setting and testing, maybe Greg's not the only obsessive around here...

[alewis]

Nice one Greg. Thats just what I need to get my Cyberstorm disks over to an Amiga so I can install the PPC/060 card.

Then I can work on getting the Amiga's re-attached to the network (been a long three years since they saw an IP packet..) and then maybe Sisys up and running. :-)

Stick about mate, this is a good board, one of the few Amiga hangouts left, and has some very nice peeps on it.

Hi again guys, Greg here. Thanks for the friendly welcome, it's just so great to find an Amiga hang out on the web, I found you almost by accident on a search for Amgia stuff generally.

Thanks for the invite to join the forum, I may well do that shortly, I like a bit of friendly banter about my fave 'puter! And advice and help are always useful, especially now the Amiga is such a (cough) 'Specialist' interest. (specialist being a polite way of saying there's not that many off us left!)

I'm a bit of an Amiga nut and it is still my main computer 99.9% of the time. I do have a PC, but it is never used for anything creative, I just use it as a work-horse to do the mindless repetative stuff like burning multiple CDs.

Anyway, I won't hi-jack this thread with boring stuff about me, back to the matter in hand.

So glad the adivce has been of some use to some of you, it took a lot of messing about to finally get PCtoAmiga stable and working reliably wih XP, but I assure the above fixes should work perfectly. I should have expected trouble when mixing a proper OS with Windows. <grin>

The critical part is the changes to the Amiga DOSdriver 'PC' and the running of the correct PC executable, and running it twice. Without the changes to the DOSdriver it can be unstable.

All the other changes I mentioned that involve delving into XP are just for the luxury of retaining the long file names, but it's worth doing to make it completely perfect.

So gald it was of some use.

Incidently, when both machines are moving files, they both suffer some slow-down, so best let them get on with it. But oddly, once a connection is established but NO files are transferring then the Amiga still rattles along perfectly, but the PC has noticalbe slow down, even though it's not doing anything except maintaining a connection! Wierd!


Anyway, it's cheap way of getting them talking. Ideally, networking them properly with Ethernet or similar would be better, but this parallel port solution is cheap and reliable.

Take care everyone, and enjoy your Amigas, they're one of the few 'Fun' computers still around!

[mr_0rga5m]

Hi Greg

Sorry to rain on your post but this has been discussed lots before .. including getting it working on XP! (and about it slowing down XP)

Check this thread for one

But hey .. thanks for the long helptext .. We could do with informative people like you on the board.

Also for some good times (!) and the occasional random amiga chat .. check out the IRC .

Originally Posted by mr_0rga5m

Hi Greg

Sorry to rain on your post but this has been discussed lots before .. including getting it working on XP! (and about it slowing down XP)
.

So sorry Mr_Orga5m, I didn't realise it had been discussed before, I have never been to this forum before so had no idea.
I just simply saw the thread with some-one having trouble getting it working with XP so I thought I'd share my findings to try to help them. Oh well....

Greg

Having said that, a quick look through the previous thread that you put as a link shows that it does indeed cover most of what I said, although the exact changes to make to the to the Amiga DOSDirvers, Surfaces and HighCyl numbers were not detailed exactly, so maybe my post contributed something for some-one. And you can't make the DOSDirver time-out surfaces zero as that thread suggest, that will throw and error box, 2 is the lowest.

Greg

[Paul]

Well I've copied it to the FAQs.
http://eab.abime.net/faq.php?faq=ami...games_xfer_faq

Hope thats ok Greg?

[Syko]

great idea Paul

Guys, please help me out, I'm getting a headache. Used to transfer ADFs with my old PC to my A1200 by use of PC2AM. And tadaaa... on my "new" PC i just can't get it to work. OS is not to blame, I know about the NT/XP port protection problem (managed to get thru with userport to connect to my C64 Floppy though, no prob there). Anyway... I'm booting DOS and run PC2AMIGA, open the corresponding tool on my A1200, PCDISK gets mounted and timeout, no chance of recovery.

I'm using the same para cable as I used back in time. I can remember trying this with my "new" PC one year ago and it didn't work but it worked with my GFs PC. Strange, hm?

In BIOS I can choose the following parallel port modes: SPP - EPP - ECP - ECP+EPP
AFAI remember my GFs PC (exchanged by a Mac) had an additional port mode my BIOS doesn't feature.

ANY idead, you're my only hope dudes

G's from Germany


BTW I managed to run PC2AM on my GFs XP PC by turning the Win98 compatibility mode for the PC2AMIGA file on. Well, like I said, her PC unfortunately is no more.

[_ThEcRoW]

@Syko

Do you have a siamese system??
Is this system still available?

[Syko]

Scuze the delay, havn't been keeping up with the hotmail acc...

Yes I've got a Siamese system, don't think the h/w is still available, but you can download the s/w... great system, but works best on W95

Best bet is to check ebay for the hardware, just checked and there's nothing at the moment

[mtb]

Has someone ever tried this http://www.boomerangsworld.de/ ?

Should work fine in Linux ( multitasking and so on ), maybe also from a live one, avoding xp hacks.

[Unknown_K]

What real world speed do you get using the parralel port for transfers?

[OddbOd]

@mtb: Yes I use it regularly, it works well and has the major advantage of not needing KS2.0. The only problem I had with it was the included version of the parapin library would not compile under SUSE 9.2, using the latest version from Sourceforge worked fine.

I get around 15kb/sec using APCComm, PC2Amiga simply refused to work despite the advice given above.

[mtb]

Originally Posted by OddbOd

@mtb: Yes I use it regularly, it works well and has the major advantage of not needing KS2.0. The only problem I had with it was the included version of the parapin library would not compile under SUSE 9.2, using the latest version from Sourceforge worked fine.

I get around 15kb/sec using APCComm, PC2Amiga simply refused to work despite the advice given above.

Well, so if i'll find a cheap laplink cable i'll buy it. 15kb/s using what kind of amiga?

[OddbOd]

A2000 '020@14MHz
I forgot to mention that is HDD to HDD speed using RAM disk is supposedly faster.