Amiga questions you've always been too embarrassed to ask

[HardStep]

Is there any difference in PC, A1200, A500 and big box Amiga floppy cables?

[Nobby_UK]

Single Drive Ribbons are the same

Twin Drive cables have (or not) a twisted section

[demolition]

Originally Posted by Nobby_UK

Single Drive Ribbons are the same

No, cables for connecting single PC drives are twisted since the drive after the twist is the first drive. If you use the floppy cable from an A500 in a PC, the drive would normally operate as B: (although you can often swap them in BIOS).

[Nobby_UK]

I stand corrected

[Jope]

When talking about PCs and big box Amigas with two internal drives: PC floppy cable: 10-16 twisted, all drives set as DS1. Amiga floppy cable: 4-6 twisted, you set DS0 and DS1 with jumpers on the drive.

[jb2815]

Why did A1200 (well the ones I've seen in NZ) keyboards have 2 blank keys?

[demolition]

Originally Posted by jb2815

Why did A1200 (well the ones I've seen in NZ) keyboards have 2 blank keys?

Because they used the same keyboard for all countries just with different printing. English speaking countries didn't need that many keys, so they are just left blank. They are used as international keys for those languages that need them, which is most non-english speaking countries as far as I know.

[jb2815]

Originally Posted by demolition

Because they used the same keyboard for all countries just with different printing. English speaking countries didn't need that many keys, so they are just left blank. They are used as international keys for those languages that need them, which is most non-english speaking countries as far as I know.

I figured it must be something like that, are they functional on english keyboards or could be used practically?

[Daedalus]

Yes, they're functional, they're just not mapped to anything. You can set a foreign keymap and use them for example, or use a keymap editing tool to add characters to them.

[demolition]

Or use them as a quit key for WHDLoad seeing as they're no being used for anything else for you.
And yes, all variants of the keyboards are electrically identical - the only difference is the printing on the keycaps. That also means that there's no way for the OS to detect which keyboard you have.

[robinsonb5]

Here's one that's puzzled me:
Pretty much from the Start the Amiga's user-interface library has had a facility where double-clicking the right mouse button can be used to bring up a requester.

I don't think I've ever actually seen it used, though! Is there any software that makes use of this?

[thomas]

I remember having seen it only once. The program used it to bring up its About info. Don't remember which one it was, though. Might be PowerPacker.

[Gorf]

Originally Posted by robinsonb5

Here's one that's puzzled me:
Pretty much from the Start the Amiga's user-interface library has had a facility where double-clicking the right mouse button can be used to bring up a requester.

I don't think I've ever actually seen it used, though! Is there any software that makes use of this?

LOL

ok - that is actually news to me!
Now that you wrote it, that idea sounds kind of obvious and useful ... but I probably not even once performed a double-click with the right button.
Especially since you usually don't "click" at all but hold the right button down to access the menu....

[thomas]

There is more than menus you can do with the right mouse button. In paint programs the right button is used to draw with the second or background color.

[Gorf]

Originally Posted by thomas

There is more than menus you can do with the right mouse button. In paint programs the right button is used to draw with the second or background color.

Yes, but also by holding it down.

Just saying that a right-double-click simply never occurred to me..

[Leandro Jardim]

Why I see on some docs asking the user to put on the Startup-Sequence a line with double output redirection like "<>NIL:"? (without the quotes). What the double brackets mean in AmigaDOS?

[Exodous]

< means redirect input from the respective file
> means redirect output to the respective file
NIL: is a pseudo file which means "nowhere"

You could write it as "<NIL: >NIL:" but this can be shortened to <>NIL:

[thomas]

Originally Posted by Exodous

You could write it as "<NIL: >NIL:" but this can be shortened to <>NIL:

Not exactly.

>a will open a and use it as standard output
<b will open b and use it as standard input
<>c will open c and use it as both input and output

so for example

>con: <con: will open two windows, one for input and one for output, but
<>con: will open only one window and use that for both input and output.

For nil: you are right, it does not make a big difference.

In most cases redirection to nil: is not needed. It just suppresses any error messages and makes debugging nearly impossible. Most commands have a QUIET switch which suppresses normal messages but still issues any error messages. That's the better way to do it. In many cases redirection is even unnescessary, for example for Assign. It does not print any output.

[Exodous]

Originally Posted by thomas

Not exactly.
....
For nil: you are right, it does not make a big difference.

Please do elaborate as to which of the 4 lines I wrote are "Not exactly" correct in the context of the question of what "<>" before "NIL:" meant?

[daxb]

Line 4. Read again what Tomas wrote. Further, I would say that the word file isn't exactly correct too, because it doesn't need to be a file. You can redirect to a device or CON: for example.