A-Max disks?

[Supamax]

Here is a review of CrossMAC 1.05. It's a pity I can't understand a word!
http://amigareview.amiga.sk/amiga-review-28/crossmac

There are references to MaxDOS, ShapeShifter, MAC forks etc.

[prowler]

Originally Posted by Supamax

Did you check Aminet?
http://aminet.net/search?query=crossmac

In some of the update patches there are readme files. They look slightly "encrypted". Perhaps after installation they will be more readable. They have the "@" prefix, so perhaps they have some form of compression...

I don't know, however, what you can do, even with instructions (that you haven't tried yet, I mean) .

It would be nice to know for sure whether it is possible to restore the data and resource forks of Cosmic's files by selecting both and dragging them to an A-Max formatted disk using Workbench. (Some files have resource forks only, so zero-length data forks will have to be created to go with these.

Originally Posted by Supamax

We could try PMing AndreasM. I saw that he posted in this thread, but perhaps he doesn't know he could help us with his scanner and some of his time

I didn't know he'd posted in this thread!

Originally Posted by Supamax

Here is a review of CrossMAC 1.05. It's a pity I can't understand a word!
http://amigareview.amiga.sk/amiga-review-28/crossmac

There are references to MaxDOS, ShapeShifter, MAC forks etc.

Yes, I linked to that page here:
http://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p=...&postcount=252
At the bottom of that post.

prowler

[Supamax]

Originally Posted by prowler

It would be nice to know for sure whether it is possible to restore the data and resource forks of Cosmic's files by selecting both and dragging them to an A-Max formatted disk using Workbench.

Trying that (dragging etc.) will give you the answer you are seeking for?

Yes, I linked to that page here:
http://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p=...&postcount=252
At the bottom of that post.

Oh, sorry!

[cosmicfrog]

Not been postin much lately but you beta I`m following this thread

also have you read the readme file on crossmac disk yet prowler ?

so keep up thy good work chaps

[prowler]

Hi Supamax/Cosmic,

Originally Posted by Supamax

Trying that (dragging etc.) will give you the answer you are seeking for?

Yes, of course, but I can't get access to the TV much at weekends, but, even so, I really, really do need the CrossMAC manual.

Originally Posted by cosmicfrog

have you read the readme file on crossmac disk yet prowler ?

Yes, and I've read all the readme files from the update archives too, but they only contain "last minute updates that are not in the manual".

prowler

[cosmicfrog]

Originally Posted by prowler

but I can't get access to the TV much at weekends,

hahahha thats so sad No that realy is

but as usual theres no rush

[prowler]

Hi Cosmic/Supamax,

Here is a transcript of the information from the CrossMAC piccies on the AmigaFuture site:

CrossMAC - The Mac File System for the Amiga.

CrossMAC is an Amiga software product allowing you to read and write Mac formatted disks directly from Amiga. It fully integrates itself into the Amiga operating system allowing your Mac formatted disks to be accessed from virtually any utility or application.

A properly configured CrossMAC device will allow you to access any file on a Mac formatted disk from any Amiga application. Imagine creating a TIFF graphics file on your Mac and bringing it over to your Amiga to convert it to IFF graphics. Other file types that can be exchanged include databases, spreadsheets, language compilers and CAD programs, to name a few.

Mac formatted disks (HFS) are supported with the following hardware:

• Low-density, 800K floppies with either the A-Max cartridge and a Mac 800K drive or the A-Max II Plus / A-Max IV cards and standard Amiga floppies.
• High-density, 1.44M floppies with an Amiga-compatible high-density drive.
• Hard drives with the appropriate Amiga hard drive controller.
• Mac HFS-formatted CD-ROMs with the appropriate Amiga hard drive controller.

Quasi-Mac formatted disks (HFS) are supported with the standard Amiga hardware:

• Low-density, A-Max 800K floppies.
• Low-density, Emplant 800K floppies.
• A-Max and Emplant hard drive partitions.

Other features:

• Support of both Mac data and resource 'forks' as separate files.
• Amiga <-> Mac translation of international text characters.
• Disk changes are sensed automatically (if the drive provides the proper hardware signal).
• Mac icons automatically displayed under Workbench.
• Utilities to format, copy and check the integrity of Mac disks.
• File salvation utility to try to recover files from a corrupted Mac disk.
• Transparent support of MacBinary files.
• Not copy protected.

Unfortunately, this is just a list of CrossMAC's features. What we need is details of how they are implemented and used, which only a manual will provide.

I am not convinced, from the information I have seen so far, that CrossMAC provides the support necessary to properly restore the files recovered using the file salvation utility back to Mac disks.

Indeed, am not even convinced that it supports two-way transfer of Macintosh files between Mac and AmigaDOS disks whilst preserving the data and resource forks, other than by using MacBinary encoding.

If it turns out that CrossMAC does *not* provide this support, and I find it's not possible to recover Cosmic's disk files using PC-Exchange, then I shall look at using a combination of the Macintosh HexEdit and ResEdit applications to do it.

prowler

[prowler]

Originally Posted by cosmicfrog

all I can find is hacked versions of amax 2 any 1 got 1 without the rom ?

Hi Cosmic,

I've had a look through my files and all I have is these:

From the Official A-Max Home Page:
http://crossconnect.tripod.com/AMAXHOME.HTML
A-Max 2.0x
AMAX20x_1.DMS
A-Max 2.5x
AMAX250.DMS
AMAX251_TM.DMS
AMAX253_LL.DMS
AMAX256.DMS
AMAX25x_EC612.DMS

From http://tosec.amiga.me/ User Name: EAB Password: tosec
( http://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p=517716&postcount=34 )
A-Max 2.0x
A-Max II (1989)(ReadySoft)[cr Prime Evil][emulator].zip
A-Max II v2.0 (1990)(ReadySoft)[cr Cap'n Crunch][WB, emulator].zip
A-Max II v2.06 (1991)(ReadySoft)[h Legend][emulator].zip
A-Max 2.5x
A-Max II v2.56 (1992)(ReadySoft)[cr QTX][emulator].zip

...which appear to be hacked versions too!

prowler

[Supamax]

Originally Posted by prowler

From the Official A-Max Home Page:
http://crossconnect.tripod.com/AMAXHOME.HTML
A-Max 2.0x
AMAX20x_1.DMS

This one is absolutely non-hacked...

[cosmicfrog]

thanks Supamax, now if i get time i will try the winuae rom thingy

[prowler]

Hi Supamax/Cosmic,

I've started polishing up the translation of the CrossMAC 1.05 review found here:
http://amigareview.amiga.sk/amiga-review-28/crossmac

I think this may be important. In conclusion, at the end of the review, it states that "a little more documentation" would be nice, so this is obviously not CrossMAC's strong point!

Here is what I have so far. I'll add more as I get though it.

AMIGA Review Online

CrossMAC 1.05

Introduction

After the previously reviewed MaxDOS (AR 16) comes another Macintosh filesystem under the name CrossMAC. Testing the latest version 1.05.

The author of the package is CrossMAC company Consultron, known as the manufacturer of the CrossDOS filesystem giving the Amiga a degree of compatibility with the PC. CrossMAC again, like CrossDOS, is a comprehensive package of programs whose key task is to transfer data between the Macintosh and the Amiga.

Installation and Configuration

It is very easy, a Commodore Installer copying all necessary files to the appropriate location. CrossMAC requires AmigaOS 2.04 or later and only 512 kilobytes of memory. The backbone of the entire package is a file "CrossMACFileSystem" normally located in the "L" drawer, the "filedisk.device" and "mfm.device" in "Devs", the control program in the form of commodities and a lot of additional utilities. After installation, the filesystem works with DD and HD diskettes, CD-ROMs, hard drives and disk image files. To read/mount Macintosh DD floppies, due to different hardware (speed, etc.), requires an A-Max II Plus card and Macintosh DD drive or A-Max IV / Emplant card and Amiga DD drive, but to work with HD floppies requires just any Amiga HD floppy drive. By mounting devicenames MAC0: to MAC3: (mountlists are already done) you now have up to 4 floppy drives which may be used for reading / writing Macintosh files. Configuring a CD-ROM drive, hard drive or partition is a little bit more complex.

...to be continued

prowler

[prowler]

Hi Supamax/Cosmic,

This evening, I salvaged the 'Easy Access.rs' file from Cosmic's System 6.0.3 A-Max disk a futher eight times and once more ended up with two versions of the file (three of one and five of the other). I am now inclined to believe that the second version is the more correct one, but it is far from certain. I'm going to have to try both if I ever figure out how to get these files back to Macintosh disks in one piece.

Also this evening, I tried to recombine the data and resource forks of the MacWrite II application by selecting both and dragging them onto a blank A-Max formatted disk. I then created a zero-length 'Desktop' file to accompany the 'Desktop.rs' file, which was also on the original disks, and dragged them both together onto the same disk. However, the zero-length file does not appear to have made it onto the A-Max disk by using this method. Alas, When you're experimenting, because you don't have a (CrossMAC) manual, what else can you do?

I made an image of the resulting disk using Emplant's Disk Converter 6.0, stripped off the 16-byte header and mounted it in Mini vMac for Windows. Only the Desktop file showed up in the window which opened when the disk was mounted, and that was shown as a document.

Had the recombination been successful, the MacWrite application would have shown up as an icon in the window, but the desktop file would have been invisible.

Thus, it appears that CrossMAC does not support the recombination of the data and resource forks of Macintosh files salvaged from damaged disks using its Mac_File_Salv utility when they are copied back to Macintosh disks.

The next method I'm going to try (and this will be suitable for the MacWrite II application at least), is to use the Macintosh Hexedit and ResEdit applications to replace the data and resource forks of another version of the MacWrite application with those salvaged from Cosmic's disks.

prowler

[prowler]

@cosmicfrog:

Can you remember what the MacWrite II disks contained? The disks from both sets are identical, and each contains just a single file (consisting of the usual data and resource forks) " MacWrite II", which I had assumed to be the MacWrite II application (it's about 600kB)

However, I have several other versions of the MacWrite application, and all are much smaller (~50kB).

Now I'm wondering whether this file might actually be some sort of self-extracting archive which installs the application and dictiionary, etc.

Can you remember this at all?

I have assembled all the tools I need to have a go at restoring this disk on my Macintosh tomorrow. It might help me decide what to do with the file that results if I can successfully recombine the data and resource forks, but the icon and file type / creator still remains elusive.

Thanks,

prowler

PS. This site:
http://www.macattic.com/MiscSoftware.html
refers to Mac Write II 800k disks.

[cosmicfrog]

as far as i can remember mac write was an application which ran off the disk

[prowler]

Hi Cosmic/Supamax,

I must have posted the above request just after you logged out last night, Cosmic, but I went ahead anyway this evening and, as it turned out, the information wouldn't have made any difference at all to the outcome.

It now seems that CrossMAC's File Salvation utility is not intended to provide the means for exact reconstruction of original files from damaged disks, but merely to salvage important data they might still contain.

I started out with two files, "MacWrite II" and "MacWrite II.rs", representing the data and resource forks, respectively, of the MacWrite II application for Macintosh, salvaged from Cosmic's MacWrite II A-Max disks, identical files resulting from both disks. Problematically, each of these files, when copied to a Macintosh computer, contains a data fork only.

Using the Macintosh SuperResEdit 2.1.3 and HexEdit 1.0.7 utilities, it soon became clear that, although both are capable of editing the data and resource forks of Macintosh files, no facility exists to take the data fork from one file to create a resource fork for another.

About two weeks ago, while searching the internet for Macintosh tools to manipulate data and resource forks, I came across the suggestion that "MacDisk ( http://www.macdisk.com ) can swap data and resource forks on Macintosh media (in the Expert menu).

So I installed a copy of MacDisk for Windows and used it to swap the data and resource forks of the "MacWrite II.rs" file, copied to a HD Mac-formatted floppy disk.

However, when I tried to open the resulting file in SuperResEdit back on the Macintosh, I got the error message: "Sorry, this file is damaged beyond repair. You should restore a backup copy if possible".

This has effectively exhausted the simple methods I had in mind to reconstruct these files.

I'm not altogether surprised at the news that this file is damaged. It's about ten times larger than I would have expected for a copy of the Mac Write application, and the code does look much more like an application than a self-extracting archive. Also, the resource forks of Macintosh files appear to be structured as a set of resources common to files of similar type. There are large blocks of zero data in the "MacWrite II.rs" file, which may serve as separators between the various components.

I could try salvaging good copies of Mac Write from A-Max formatted disks and compare those with the originals to see if there is a pattern which suggests either how the "MacWrite II.rs" file might be edited to make a successful transition from data fork back to resource fork, or whether it would be possible to rebuild the resource fork by restoring the individual resources one by one.

This does seem to be the only method left by which it might still be possible to make CrossMAC's salvaging of these files worthwhile.

I have still not tried using CrossMAC to copy the three 800kB A-Max disks which will mount in Workbench, because I didn't think it would be successful. However, I must give it a try soon, because I am now ready to remove CrossMAC and at last give A-Max emulation the chance to recover something from these disks.

And because these disks are evidently different to those which I generated with Emplant's Disk Converter utility, it is probably also worth trying them with Disk2FDI.

Any other suggestions would, as always, be welcome.

prowler

[prowler]

Hey Cosmic,

Is this your Mac Playmate game?

prowler

[cosmicfrog]

hahha that looks something like it hehehhe but never played it that much, honest

where did you find that no no I don`t whant to know

see you are haveing fun with the floppy after all

[prowler]

Well, I hope to be in a position to upload it for you tomorrow as an A-Max disk image, so you can play it to your heart's content!

prowler

[cosmicfrog]

but after all the hecktic things that have been going on in the last few days that would be a welcome break

me wants to but amax on 4000 and play but me has to wait
but might try it on winuae if get chance to set it up on netbook tommoror

[prowler]

If I upload it both as an A-Max disk image and as a Macintosh 800kB disk image (same thing, but with the first 16 bytes removed) you will have the choice between playing it on WinUAE or Mini vMac.