Adding a hard drive to the A570

[Vipersan]

Another Amiga lockdown project nearing completion.
I fixed up my A570 a few weeks back ...and started the process of adding the modern day parts to allow a scsi hard drive to be used un an unmodded A500/A570 combo.
The parts were not cheap ..but most were sourced in the UK from Ebay vendor Adrian (Adeee)
This included an internal 2mb ram card and SCSI adapter which fit in the A570.
..and brings a 25 pin scsi port to the outside world.
I believe you can attach a 'real' scsi hard drive here ..but chose to use a SCSI2SD adapter ...V 5.5 ..which I think was created for MAC compters originally ..but will work fine for my purposes.
I had to order this from the USA ..and again ...not cheap.
Anyoo ..
I am just waiting for delivery of a 1gb micro SD to get started.
I could use a larger one but this might just add complications I dont need.
Here is a photo of the build so far ...
This project was inspired by watching a 10MARC episode on youtube.
Doug explains the process very well indeed.
rgds
VS

[Vipersan]

The 1gb micro SD card arrived.

Finally got workbench 3.1 on a 250mb partition on the scsi2sd...the remainder was just partitioned and labelled 'stuff'

So I now have a 1gb scsi drive,,which boots WB3.1 with KS 3.1

Now to test if I can still boot Defender of the Crown ..from CD

Sometimes yes ..sometimes no...but always I can get to WB3.1 with no disc inthe A570

Insert Euroscene Disc and reboot ..

Blank screen ..does not get to WB3.1

Remove Disc and reboot ..

Back comes WB3.1 ...then insert Euroscene Disc..

WB hangs and the logo never appears ..

So OS effectively crashed

Remove KS 3.1 and replace with KS2.XX

Repeat with Defender of the Crown ..which boots and plays.

Remove DOTC ..and reboot ..

Boots into WB3.1 with KS 2.XX

Insert Euroscene disc and the logo appears on screen and I can open the disc contents..

This is as much as I've tested so far.

But I have every intention of making this a dual boot system anyway ..

KS 1.3 or KS 2.XX ...and KS 3.1 for more compatibility.

I guess I could then create a second 1gb micro SD with earlier Workbench as well so I can swap these out as needed.

Providing I use the same size SD the geometry info stored in the scsi2sd should not care ...and after swapping out the SD I can just switch Kickstart before switching on.

Hope this makes sense ...

lol

[Vipersan]

So ..I finally got the unmodded A500 more or less as I want it.
The dual boot 27c800 rom switches just fine and I can boot to a micro SD scsi card via the scsi port on the back of the A570.
This means that I am able to use multiple microSDs if required providing they are of the same physical size..the geometry is determined by the scsi2sd v5.5 device itself.
So I have 2 sd cards in use ..
One is outfitted with workbench 3.1 ..the other holds workbench 1.3.
So ..simply powering down ..swapping the SD card then selecting the relevant kickstart and reboot.
Why is 1.3 important you might ask..?
Well the A570 interacts correctly with KS 1.3 ...thus WB 1.3 is kinda useful in this regard and means I can either boot to the A570s CD drive ..or ..now I have a bootable WB 1.3 on an SD ..can boot directly to that Hard drive and read data from compatible CD in the caddy.
I am not particularly familiar with WB 1.3 and have discovered it has limitations..
for example no ' show all' function thus most files remain invisble to workbench requiring me to use a DOS CLI interface ..
This I find very difficult as command line interfaces are definately not my forte.
Hardware I love ..software ...not so much.
So ..to my requests for help ..
Is there such a thing as an LHA decompression tool which has a GUI and can be installed on a hard drive using workbench 1.3 ?
I presume the A590 would have used such a thing ?
..and can anyone recommend a directory/file management tool ..again..with a GUI and possible LHA integration which again can be installed to my newly created SD scsi hard drive under WB 1.3
Then I need to learn how to install and run games from floppy to hard drive which rarely have an installer as part of that software package.
Any good tutorials out there on youtube perhaps ?
pointers apppreciated.
Back in the days of WB 1.3 a 1gb hard drive was unheard of ...so I suspect what I'm asking for may not be an easy thing.
Please help if you can.
rgds
VS

[Jope]

You can use a directory management tool, such as Directory Opus, if you want to use the mouse when unpacking lha archives.

1GB and WB1.3 is a non-issue, shouldn't overflow any size checks in game installers either.

As you said yourself, you need to learn. Many old games can be natively installed to hard disk without WHDLoad. You're getting into the oldskool Amiga experience now, enjoy!

I definitely recommend to learn how the shell works, then you will find that you aren't going to be all that dependent on a directory utility after that.

[Misclegend]

The A590 will not work 100% with kickstart 2.0 or newer installed
there are some of issues
to boot cdtv titles in kick 2.0+ you can install idefix97 package which comes with a cd32 emulator
the cd32 emulator also run cdtv titles and there are a few CD32 titles that can run on your A500

but that's too complicated if you are a novel in the amiga

anyways 99 % of the cdtv games are all horrible and there is no one worthwhile that cannot be run from hard drive or floppy disk

the best file dir manager for workbench 1.3 is Diskmaster 1.4

[Vipersan]

Many thanks for your input guys ..
..and yes ..I have much to learn with old skool Amiga OS ...but looking forward to the experience now I have options re ..the A570 with additional scsi2sd.
I suspect if I'd had this back in the day..I would have been 'king of the hill' ..lol
rgds
VS

[Matt_H]

Myself, I'm partial to DOpus. Version 4.11 (and earlier) run nicely on 1.3, and the default config will extract LHA files easily. If you're not already familiar with the methodology, it's simple: click the LHA file in one pane, then click into the other pane and it will extract it there.

I've been building up a 1.3 Workbench under WinUAE and rediscovering a lot of old utilities:

• Bryce Nesbitt's ClickToFront performs the same as the version bundled with OS2.0+ (although the internal mechanics are different).
• Have a look at the old Fish Disks for loads more utilities.
• The critical commands to know for the primitive Ed are: Ctrl+B (delete line); Esc-sa-Enter (save), Esc-q-Enter (quit), Esc-x-Enter (save and quit). Or instead use Redit, which follows the expected modern UI/Menu conventions.

[Misclegend]

Originally Posted by Matt_H

I've been building up a 1.3 Workbench under WinUAE and rediscovering a lot of old utilities:

ah ok but I imagine that's just for nostalgic
Workbench 1.3 is obsolete most of the Amiga programs don't run on it and requires at least wb 2.0

Workbench 1.3 was very lame and a copy of Windows 1.03 btw
and WB 2.0 another lame copy of windows 2.0
and WB 3.0 copy of windows 3.0

they copied to microsoft all, even the default colors, just lol

[Jope]

Originally Posted by Matt_H

I've been building up a 1.3 Workbench under WinUAE and rediscovering a lot of old utilities

Quite a lot of productivity software runs under 1.3, I was surprised when I started doing a 1.3 based setup of my own.

For editors, we use CygnusED of course. ;-)

On the shell/console side of things, WShell 2.0 seems to be the nicest under 1.3, tab complete requires a key binding change in the config, but that's all. Of course ARP 1.3 is a must.

[avinitlarge]

I’m in the middle of doing this, fitted the 2mb and SCSI adapter, also serviced the drive as the black grease had gone hard.

Any recommendations for the SD card?

[idrougge]

Originally Posted by Vipersan

I had to order this from the USA ..and again ...not cheap.

No you didn't. There are resellers in both Spain and Great Britain.

Originally Posted by Vipersan

I am just waiting for delivery of a 1gb micro SD to get started.
I could use a larger one but this might just add complications I dont need.

No they might not.

[avinitlarge]

Originally Posted by idrougge

No you didn't. There are resellers in both Spain and Great Britain.



No they might not.

I got mine from Amigakit in the UK, Only took a few days and wasn't expensive.



Im currently using a 2Gb card with no issues. I did try a 8gb but it didnt want to play.

[deladrevoc]

Originally Posted by Misclegend

The A590 will not work 100% with kickstart 2.0 or newer installed
there are some of issues
to boot cdtv titles in kick 2.0+ you can install idefix97 package which comes with a cd32 emulator
the cd32 emulator also run cdtv titles and there are a few CD32 titles that can run on your A500

but that's too complicated if you are a novel in the amiga

anyways 99 % of the cdtv games are all horrible and there is no one worthwhile that cannot be run from hard drive or floppy disk

the best file dir manager for workbench 1.3 is Diskmaster 1.4

The A570 was designed with 2.04 in mind, mods may have been necessary on some A500s

Notice the label on the A570 box at the top of this thread...

https://twitter.com/amigaireland/sta...59612205924352

[alexh]

Where did you get the right angle SCSI adapter? I've got one but it is a single card and sticks out 2-3 cm from the back.

[dalek]

Originally Posted by deladrevoc

The A570 was designed with 2.04 in mind, mods may have been necessary on some A500s

Notice the label on the A570 box at the top of this thread...

https://twitter.com/amigaireland/sta...59612205924352

Not really - I used my A570 with 1.3 for many many years. It's all I had. The requirement was 1MB CHIP RAM (not 512k Chip / 512k Fast).

[deladrevoc]

Originally Posted by alexh

Where did you get the right angle SCSI adapter? I've got one but it is a single card and sticks out 2-3 cm from the back.

adeee2007 on ebay, they pop up quite regularly, along with other CDTV / A570 bits

[Jacques]

Originally Posted by Vipersan

The parts were not cheap ..but most were sourced in the UK from Ebay vendor Adrian (Adeee)
This included an internal 2mb ram card and SCSI adapter which fit in the A570.

Could you please point me where exactly you bought that SCSI adapter for A570, please?

[alexh]

https://www.ebay.co.uk/usr/adeee2007

But he's not selling one right now.

[Jacques]

Thank you, alexh. Will ask him!