What a waste of effort and time.

I bought an A500 years ago. Great computer, learnt a lot from it. I progressed, self-taught, but Amiga didn't. (Though they like to think they did)
The thing back in those days that really narked me with Amiga was the people who wrote programs, or thought they could write them. You know the ones, they put them onto magazine disks and give endless spouting on, on how good they are themselves and how good their program is. When you go and load it and try running it you find half of it is missing or it doesn't work at all. Even following to the letter the instructions printed in the magazine. Well, gave up buying those magazines and accepting demo disks from friends, waste of time.
Had, and still got some great programs for the Amiga. Can't fault them on the graphics and video programs. They are nicely tucked away in a large box at back of cupboard.

Well time goes by and as Amiga was faltering, as well as my one starting to give up, I made the reluctant change to PC. If I wanted to progress in this world, I had to change over. At this stage I was running a business and keeping records for an association, plus overlaying videos using a Genlock. Learning Microsoft Office programs to me was easy, as the same type of things as spreadsheets etc were on the Amiga programs. I found learning MSAccess a lot easier than others, as this too had the basics on Amiga. Paint and Graphic programs were easy to follow as well. Also noticed the authors of these PC programs, had seen they names on Amiga programs.

Well I progressed from the little 486 PC to the one I have now running 700mhz and heaps of grunt for what I do. But, those programs I have for the Amiga keep popping up in my memory. Some of them would be ideal for what I am doing. So thinks I, lets convert them over to PC. So into the World Wide Web I go, search for Amiga. Wow!! up came the answers on how to do it. Yeah Right!!!

What you end up with. Pages and pages of the same crap I used to see in the Amiga magazines. How good me and my mates are. This program will blow you away. etc etc etc.....

After searching through I found an emulator that supposed to suffice. Managed to get it loaded and running. After finding the Workbench, and Rom on the web. Not the 1.3 I ran on the A500, but the 3.1.
Okay, I here you cry, you supposed to use your original copy. Soooo, answer me this, how the bloody hell am I supposed to remove a copy from the original without the A500?
Well back into the www again to find the answer. After wading through all the spouting about how good we are and the rest, I find a little program that supposed to convert from Amiga format to PC format, or something like that. Well, I download and set it up. You need 2 disk drives, no problem. Rip the covers of the machine and add one in, great we are in business. Yeah Right!!
Start up the program again, rubbing my hands together in glee. Going to be able to use those video programs again. Wait for it... THIS PROGRAM IS NOT COMPATIBLE WITH YOUR COMPUTER!!!!!
Hang on... let's go back and read the guff that comes with it again. Yes it states that my machine should be more than adequate to run it.
Well my mate’s computer has arrived for slight repairs and de-bugging, little smaller than mine, wonder if his will run it. Low and behold it does. Put the emulator in his and we will be away. Wrooooong!! No such luck, won’t even think about it. So now we have two computers with the different parts needed to get things going, besides the next-door neighbour wants his floppy drive back sometime soon.
Back into web we go again and find another little program in amongst the crap that supposed to do the converting as well. Downloaded and sets up nicely…BUT!!!! This file format it is saved to isn’t supported by the emulator. Try renaming…hahahaha.

Well let’s try and solve the problem another way. See if we can find anything that will let the Amiga disk be read in the PC floppy. Pages and pages of can’t, can’t, can’t.
Found something… at last we maybe getting there. Hang on, you need a special bit as well as the program and it only works under Linex. Well that lots counted out. Linex, how many people with PC’s use that???? Might as well be in the middle of a desert.
Arrrr… found someone who might have it. Instructions and photos on how to convert your floppy over to read Amiga format. I will not copy and paste the instructions given here as it may prove embarrassing to the original writer. But I will say this. I wouldn’t ask him for instructions to the loo from the lounge, he wouldn’t be too sure, you might end up peeing in the sink in the kitchen.

Tis now 3am on the 2nd day of this sorte and a page comes up on how to swap your floppy over. You read it through tired eyes and look at the easy to follow diagrams. Yes you think, this is the answer and switch off and go to bed. Bugger, forgot to mark the page. All you can remember is something about pin 30 on the tape and drive and it takes about 10 minutes to do.

My wander back into Amiga territory has now finished with the conclusion that the people who still use them have not improved since the early 80’s. They still write pages and pages of shit about how good they and their programs are. They are quick to show off how they done it with scrolls and scrolls of technical data, but forget the simple installing instructions and how to get the layman interested in it. They are in a world of their own coming up the rear.

The simple answer I really want is to be able to slam an Amiga disc into the neighbours floppy I have installed on my PC and read it as normal through the emulator. If someone can remember or knows of the page concerning the pin 30 bit or author of it, please let me know.

shands@xtra.co.nz

[Kodoichi]

Originally posted by shands
The thing back in those days that really narked me with Amiga was the people who wrote programs, or thought they could write them. You know the ones, they put them onto magazine disks and give endless spouting on, on how good they are themselves and how good their program is.

Where do you got that from? I never seen anybody advertising their program on a coverdisk and tell us it's the best program ever made.

When you go and load it and try running it you find half of it is missing or it doesn't work at all. Even following to the letter the instructions printed in the magazine.

You need to put the disk into the floppy.

What you end up with. Pages and pages of the same crap I used to see in the Amiga magazines. How good me and my mates are. This program will blow you away. etc etc etc.....

Give me the URL to such a site.

After searching through I found an emulator that supposed to suffice. Managed to get it loaded and running. After finding the Workbench, and Rom on the web. Not the 1.3 I ran on the A500, but the 3.1.

*clapclap*

Okay, I here you cry, you supposed to use your original copy.

Who gives a fuck about what you're using?

Well back into the www again to find the answer. After wading through all the spouting about how good we are and the rest, I find a little program that supposed to convert from Amiga format to PC format, or something like that.

Yeah, more something 'like that' than converting Amiga format to the PC one.

Back into web we go again and find another little program in amongst the crap that supposed to do the converting as well. Downloaded and sets up nicely…BUT!!!! This file format it is saved to isn’t supported by the emulator. Try renaming…hahahaha.

Maybe you could tell us the name of that program? If it is Disk2Fdi, did you try the /S option? Can you read a manual at least?

Found something… at last we maybe getting there. Hang on, you need a special bit as well as the program and it only works under Linex. Well that lots counted out. Linex, how many people with PC’s use that????

Nobody, because Linex doesn't exist AFAIK. (You know what AFAIK means, don't you?)

I wouldn’t ask him for instructions to the loo from the lounge, he wouldn’t be too sure, you might end up peeing in the sink in the kitchen.

Yeah, and nobody asked for your posting here.

Bugger, forgot to mark the page. All you can remember is something about pin 30 on the tape and drive and it takes about 10 minutes to do.

Too bad... poor little guy... *pats head*

They still write pages and pages of shit about how good they and their programs are.

Again: URL?

They are quick to show off how they done it with scrolls and scrolls of technical data, but forget the simple installing instructions and how to get the layman interested in it. They are in a world of their own coming up the rear.

For the last time: RTFM. Do you know what RTFM means? Do you know how to turn on a computer?

The simple answer I really want is to be able to slam an Amiga disc into the neighbours floppy I have installed on my PC and read it as normal through the emulator. If someone can remember or knows of the page concerning the pin 30 bit or author of it, please let me know.

http://www.google.com

You don't like new people much do you samurai?

[Kodoichi]

Originally posted by Amigaboy
You don't like new people much do you samurai?

I don't have anything against that unregistered-guy, I just can't stand the 'red box'-thing...

but this one here is different, he starts ranting about things which are easy to do and understand if he only would RTFM.

[RCK]

- shands is a registered member.
- "New to Emulation / Amiga scene" have been set up to NOT frag newbies

[Kodoichi]

Originally posted by RCK
- shands is a registered member.

I know, I was talking about the unregistered guy in the other thread ('software failure').

It doesn't seem that shands is a newbie, maybe to emulation, but not on real Amigas.

[Ian]

No fragging of the "newbie's" in this section..............Wait 'til they post in another section

[Amiga1992]

Originally posted by RCK
- shands is a registered member.
- "New to Emulation / Amiga scene" have been set up to NOT frag newbies

BUT, his rant against what it is/was the Amiga scene is a bit offensive. In understand he has problems, but at somep places he says something cant be done because Amiga programmers are just smartarses who do not want to let it be done. Case in point the "insert amiga disk in PC drive" thingy.

Only thing I know of is either disk2fdi, which you should be using, or the hack to connect the pc drive to the parallel port.

Next time try to not be so darn nasty about it, we understand your probs.

[Codetapper]

Personally I think it was the magazines themselves which used to talk up their bits of software on coverdisks. Amiga Format in particular would rave about anything on their disks, no matter how dodgy it turned out to be.

Shands: I assume with an xtra.co.nz email address you live in New Zealand. If so you could always send me the disks and I will ADF them up for you (assuming they can't be downloaded off the net).

I have never used Disk2FDI since I only have one drive, and anyway there is no need for me to use it when I have the real thing

And personally I think Amiga programmers are some of the most clever people around. If you look at the stuff that was squeezed out of a 7Mhz Amiga 500 with 1Mb and compare it to the PC then there is no contest. Projects like WHDLoad continue today due to dedicated Amiga enthusiasts.

I have always thought Amiga hackers were the best, fixing bugs in original games and removing difficult copy protection. When Paradox started a PC division from the Amiga they said what a joke PC protection was, usually a simple CD key and that's it!

Try and find an old game from say 1990 you want to play on a PC and get it working at a playable speed on your current machine - it's near impossible! The PC scene just seems to forget about the older stuff and want you to play the latest 3d game. I remember about 1 year after F1GP came out on the PC a friend with a 486 with 16Mb was told "sorry, this game needs 1Mb to play".

My advise: Don't get too cocky about Windows, maybe one day Windows will be consigned to the rubbish bin and people will say "remember when we used to put up with PC's crashing all the time, operating systems which didn't multi-task, hassles uninstalling programs, needing to shutdown your computer, taking 1 minute to boot..." etc

Let’s start from the first posting.

s4murai: ( going by his profile, old enough to be my grandson. Fingers on keyboard faster than brain.)
Has actually accentuated what I spoke about these so-called Amiga freaks. Yes I do know what RTFM means. Think I had a hand in coining it. Do you honestly think I would bother posting here looking for that page if I hadn’t read the manual? Word of advice: next time you reply to threads, cut the foul language. Your mentality shows.
You are correct when saying I’m not new to Real Amigas. In fact I have forgotten more about them than I had realised. (owned mine before you were born) Pulled out my old notes on programming them and using other programs such as Octamed, Paint, VideoIII, Procalc, etc, etc. Mind you these are not games so possibly you haven’t heard of them. (been reading some of your other postings.)

Akira: Yes I have tried both of what you suggested. Disk2fdi is the program I was talking about when I said it works in one machine and not another. I have 6 machines sitting here with 3 linked through a hub. The machine I want it set up on is not one of them and wont take the program. Next step is to rebuild the machine to suit, which is not much of a problem to me. This machine will be running 80% Amiga programs only. The two best video creating programs I have ever come across are Amiga based, and I have them both. I do a lot of writing from websites to applications and every machine has a main part set up on it. This stops the conflicts that occur with some programs (windows L) as well as making it easier to do 2 or 3 things at the same time and run tests. When writing the help files for applications, it’s a lot easier to have the application running on one machine and writing on another, than it is trying to remember each step in the process and keep flicking back and forward.

Codetapper: Yes I agree with you concerning the Amiga programmers. Look at some programs and games written for windows. You will find the names of people who started out with Amiga. PC’s crashing all the time!!! When did it stop???? J
Appreciate your offer of converting programs for me. I will email you concerning them. No I don’t think you will find them on the web to download.
Yes have to agree as well I might of sounded a bit harsh.
Also I have to remember that it was the old A500 that started me off

[andreas]

If someone can remember or knows of the page concerning the pin 30 bit or author of it, please let me know.

http://home.t-online.de/home/Christi...t/index-e.html


P.S.: The translation INTO English was done by yours truly ... the original translation was absolutely horrible, but admittedly great fun to read, heheh If you have some suggestions and/or enhancements in anything, let me know

We are now getting closer to finding it. I have checked your page but sorry it wasn't yours. The graphic is the same. This person did say that he had taken it from somewhere else and expanded on it and turned it into understandable english. Sounds if both of you had the same idea. Thanks anyways will be taking closer look at your one.

The box of disks are now on the way to him so he can convert for me.
Thanks to the rest of you as well for your input.
Also, I would not recommend disk2fdi until it has been properly done. I don't give up easy and ran extensive tests with it on 6 different computers, all different configurations and o/s's. Out of the 150 or so disks used each time only 2 went through and came out as they supposed to do, once. Funny enough, these 2 disks were cover disks from the early 80's

regards