Amiga questions you've always been too embarrassed to ask - Page 98

jolly11 · 19 September 2018, 09:14

thank you for the answers..another question: why isn't possible to copy the games from floppy disk to hard disk and to play from it?

ajk · 19 September 2018, 09:24

It is possible, if there is no copy protection to prevent it and the floppy disk uses a normal file system.

Some games have their own hard drive installers, but many games were designed on purpose to be floppy only so that they can't be as easily copied (though obviously all were soon cracked anyway). That is why WHDLoad was created.

jolly11 · 19 September 2018, 09:34

thanks for the answer..yeah, I know whdload

I was curious to understand why old dos pc games were so easy to copy to hard drive and instead amiga games had so many "anti-pirate" systems. I thought the "problem" was that hard drive was "optional" on amiga so the developers didn't bother about it

Daedalus · 19 September 2018, 09:52

Yeah, the general lack of uptake on optional hard drives (perhaps their expense when thinking of the A500) will have been a factor because the vast majority of Amigas were floppy-only systems, but also the Amiga's floppy drive controlling hardware was very flexible, allowing for lots of non-standard disk formats that couldn't be read by AmigaDOS. PC controllers didn't have that same kind of functionality, so disks more or less had to be standard format, and while there were still copy protected disks, they could at least be read by MS-DOS.

ajk · 19 September 2018, 10:27

Also quite a lot of the larger, multi-disk (let's say 4 disks or more) games actually do have their own hard drive installers and use a code wheel or other protection system instead. This includes almost all point-and-click adventure games (e.g. Monkey Island, Beneath a Steel Sky), many strategy games (e.g. Syndicate, UFO: Enemy Unknown) and some others (e.g. Wing Commander, Flashback).

I suppose for games with 1 or 2 disks it wasn't considered a big deal to not be hard drive installable, especially considering that a large portion of the users indeed never had one anyway.

nogginthenog · 03 October 2018, 20:55

Did anyone ever use the 680x0 MMU to create a virtual machine?
e.g. an Atari ST VM running under AmigaOS.

Daedalus · 03 October 2018, 21:37

Arguably you could say that Mac emulators like Shapeshifter and Fusion are doing that sort of thing.

nogginthenog · 03 October 2018, 21:56

Not really. Mac emulators are running a patched version of the Mac OS as a regular (non protected) AmigaOS task. No MMU is needed.

I'm thinking about a proper VM. The 68030/40/60 processor supports this as Linux/BSD 68k needs this kind of functionality.

jolly11 · 11 October 2018, 19:42

is it safe to use the original amiga cd32's joypad on a amiga 1200?

Hewitson · 11 October 2018, 19:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by jolly11

is it safe to use the original amiga cd32's joypad on a amiga 1200?

Absolutely. Some games even supported it.

Daedalus · 11 October 2018, 22:48

Yep, any Amiga can read a CD32 pad, and there are lots of games patched with WHDLoad to make use of the extra buttons too.

plasmab · 11 October 2018, 22:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daedalus

Yep, any Amiga can read a CD32 pad, and there are lots of games patched with WHDLoad to make use of the extra buttons too.

My question is how the joypad works... its always been a mystery to me. The CD32 one with the extra buttons that is.

ajk · 12 October 2018, 05:47

It can switch to a mode where the button states are transmitted in a serial fashion rather than as individual i/o lines.

modrobert · 12 October 2018, 07:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by plasmab

My question is how the joypad works... its always been a mystery to me. The CD32 one with the extra buttons that is.

http://gerdkautzmann.de/cd32gamepad/cd32gamepad.html

plasmab · 12 October 2018, 09:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by modrobert

http://gerdkautzmann.de/cd32gamepad/cd32gamepad.html

Thanks! That’s quite neat.

jolly11 · 12 October 2018, 14:09

I used to play gorillas (gorilla.bas) on my 286 pc, does it -or something similar- exists for amiga?

Daedalus · 12 October 2018, 14:22

Little bit of a stretch, but you could say Worms is an evolution of that sort of game (Artillery-style). There's also Scorched Tanks, and I'm sure many others, though I can't think of any that you have to manually enter parameters like Gorilla.bas.

I once tried porting it to the Amiga, but it was too tied to the QBasic graphics commands to be a simple port, so I left it...

Hewitson · 12 October 2018, 17:35

Why would the Xcopy author have made it impossible to do a soft reset? I don't know of any other software which disabled it.

Predseda · 21 October 2018, 21:50

Does anyone has a list of basic (Kickstart plus Workbench) Amiga libraries with the short description what is which library responsible for?

Rotareneg · 22 October 2018, 04:37

You mean besides the ROM Kernel
Reference Manual? http://amigadev.elowar.com/

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19 September 2018, 09:14	#1941
jolly11 Registered User Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Mars Posts: 183	thank you for the answers..another question: why isn't possible to copy the games from floppy disk to hard disk and to play from it?

19 September 2018, 09:24	#1942
ajk Registered User Join Date: May 2010 Location: Helsinki, Finland Posts: 1,341	It is possible, if there is no copy protection to prevent it and the floppy disk uses a normal file system. Some games have their own hard drive installers, but many games were designed on purpose to be floppy only so that they can't be as easily copied (though obviously all were soon cracked anyway). That is why WHDLoad was created.

19 September 2018, 09:34	#1943
jolly11 Registered User Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Mars Posts: 183	thanks for the answer..yeah, I know whdload I was curious to understand why old dos pc games were so easy to copy to hard drive and instead amiga games had so many "anti-pirate" systems. I thought the "problem" was that hard drive was "optional" on amiga so the developers didn't bother about it

19 September 2018, 09:52	#1944
Daedalus Registered User Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Dublin, then Glasgow Posts: 6,334	Yeah, the general lack of uptake on optional hard drives (perhaps their expense when thinking of the A500) will have been a factor because the vast majority of Amigas were floppy-only systems, but also the Amiga's floppy drive controlling hardware was very flexible, allowing for lots of non-standard disk formats that couldn't be read by AmigaDOS. PC controllers didn't have that same kind of functionality, so disks more or less had to be standard format, and while there were still copy protected disks, they could at least be read by MS-DOS.

19 September 2018, 10:27	#1945
ajk Registered User Join Date: May 2010 Location: Helsinki, Finland Posts: 1,341	Also quite a lot of the larger, multi-disk (let's say 4 disks or more) games actually do have their own hard drive installers and use a code wheel or other protection system instead. This includes almost all point-and-click adventure games (e.g. Monkey Island, Beneath a Steel Sky), many strategy games (e.g. Syndicate, UFO: Enemy Unknown) and some others (e.g. Wing Commander, Flashback). I suppose for games with 1 or 2 disks it wasn't considered a big deal to not be hard drive installable, especially considering that a large portion of the users indeed never had one anyway.

03 October 2018, 20:55	#1946
nogginthenog Amigan Join Date: Feb 2012 Location: London Posts: 1,309	Did anyone ever use the 680x0 MMU to create a virtual machine? e.g. an Atari ST VM running under AmigaOS.

03 October 2018, 21:37	#1947
Daedalus Registered User Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Dublin, then Glasgow Posts: 6,334	Arguably you could say that Mac emulators like Shapeshifter and Fusion are doing that sort of thing.

03 October 2018, 21:56	#1948
nogginthenog Amigan Join Date: Feb 2012 Location: London Posts: 1,309	Not really. Mac emulators are running a patched version of the Mac OS as a regular (non protected) AmigaOS task. No MMU is needed. I'm thinking about a proper VM. The 68030/40/60 processor supports this as Linux/BSD 68k needs this kind of functionality.

11 October 2018, 19:42	#1949
jolly11 Registered User Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Mars Posts: 183	is it safe to use the original amiga cd32's joypad on a amiga 1200?

11 October 2018, 22:48	#1951
Daedalus Registered User Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Dublin, then Glasgow Posts: 6,334	Yep, any Amiga can read a CD32 pad, and there are lots of games patched with WHDLoad to make use of the extra buttons too.

12 October 2018, 05:47	#1953
ajk Registered User Join Date: May 2010 Location: Helsinki, Finland Posts: 1,341	It can switch to a mode where the button states are transmitted in a serial fashion rather than as individual i/o lines.

12 October 2018, 14:09	#1956
jolly11 Registered User Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Mars Posts: 183	I used to play gorillas (gorilla.bas) on my 286 pc, does it -or something similar- exists for amiga?

12 October 2018, 14:22	#1957
Daedalus Registered User Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Dublin, then Glasgow Posts: 6,334	Little bit of a stretch, but you could say Worms is an evolution of that sort of game (Artillery-style). There's also Scorched Tanks, and I'm sure many others, though I can't think of any that you have to manually enter parameters like Gorilla.bas. I once tried porting it to the Amiga, but it was too tied to the QBasic graphics commands to be a simple port, so I left it...

12 October 2018, 17:35	#1958
Hewitson Registered User Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Melbourne, Australia Age: 41 Posts: 3,771	Why would the Xcopy author have made it impossible to do a soft reset? I don't know of any other software which disabled it.

21 October 2018, 21:50	#1959
Predseda Puttymoon inhabitant Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Tromaville Age: 46 Posts: 7,537	Does anyone has a list of basic (Kickstart plus Workbench) Amiga libraries with the short description what is which library responsible for?

22 October 2018, 04:37	#1960
Rotareneg Registered User Join Date: Sep 2017 Location: Kansas, USA Posts: 324	You mean besides the ROM Kernel Reference Manual? http://amigadev.elowar.com/

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