Amiga questions you've always been too embarrassed to ask

[Nosferax]

Thanks! ��

[daxb]

Each partition needs some memory buffer. E.g. 10 partitons with 200 buffer (200*512 byte) = 10 * 102400 byte = 1 MiB. So 1000 partitions could take 100 MiB memory. On the other hand with may partitions you normally don't mount all of them, only when needed.

[Gorf]

Next question:

Did anyone really use the little arrows next to the scroll-bars in a Workbench window?
If I want to move the content of the window I simply use the bar, or click on the grey area to "skip".
But even in modern themes like Amikit we have there little arrows, that add quite some noise to the visual experience. I consider them as unnecessary and annoying.

They seem to be there, because the first Workbench was copying the Mac, which had them too.

Does anyone really like these arrows?

[Daedalus]

I can't say that I like or dislike them, but I do use them so it wouldn't be a good thing if they disappeared. One use case: moving beyond the currently occupied area in a Workbench window, to move to a clear space so that I can copy more icons in as I like them.

[Jope]

The only times I've used them is if I want the contents to scroll out of the window a bit, then snap it back with the bar. I can't think of why I've done that though, perhaps I just wanted to align the icons with the edge of the window without ruining the icon positions, if the icons are in various sizes.

[Amiga1992]

Sometimes I use them, it's a little more precise/progressive. Jumping "pages" with the bar clicking on the empty space can have bad results.

[puppypc]

I use them, same as I do in Windows and X11. Sometimes, you just want a single click to move a tiny bit. (and sometimes, for whatever reason, you feel like doing multiple single steps)

[Gorf]

Ok - I see this feature has got it's fans :-)

While I don't miss it at all on macOS or my Linux, I see that even Windows 10 is still providing these little arrows...

I still would prefer them at least hidden - only appearing, when the mouse pointer is hovering above.

[jolly11]

http://hol.abime.net/2396
this game has an installer on disk 1,
installing the game on the hard disk and playing from it, it works, but if I do the same thing with a ide compact flash instead of the hard disk, it doesn't work..why?

[Daedalus]

Could be a number of reasons, though I doubt any of them are because it's a CF card. Some software doesn't work above the 4GB (or even 2GB) border, so if your CF card is large that could be the issue. Differences in filesystem might have an effect, even things like how much chip RAM is left free after you've opened up the containing drawer can cause problems.

[idrougge]

Or the MaxTransfer is incorrect on the CF, so that larger files have been damaged when installing.

[jolly11]

thanks for the answers..but..
I forgot to say that I've tried with one 1 gb cf and two 256mb cf, setting max transfer to 0xFE00. it's strange because the game install itself with two executables, bm_512k (it requires 512k of ram) and bm (1 meg version), but even having 700k of memory free, bm_512k doesn't work

[Daedalus]

You've only got 700KB of free RAM? It could also be that that memory is fragmented and that you don't have 500KB available in a single lump anywhere. What does the Avail shell command tell you?

What other differences are there between the hard drive setup and the CF setups?

[Amiga1992]

Yeah it sounds to me like you don't have enough RAM to run the game.
Perhaps your CF setup is using PFS3 and more buffers than the old hard disk with FFS?

[drHirudo]

Does compression of data on Amiga DD disks gives loading speed advance versus the same data written uncompressed on disk?


For example what is the difference between 128 KB data loaded, vs 64 KB loaded and then decompressed to 128 KB (assuming 50% compression effectiveness and fast depacking algo, like PowerPacker)?

[emufan]

while looking on those BS1 disks, some of them boot,
but have no startup-sequence or stop execution due to
missing/wrong command.
so what now?

what's missing here, is a simple 'dir' command.
wonder why they forgot to put one into the kickstart.

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by emufan

while looking on those BS1 disks, some of them boot,
but have no startup-sequence or stop execution due to
missing/wrong command.
so what now?

what's missing here, is a simple 'dir' command.
wonder why they forgot to put one into the kickstart.

Sometimes this kinda failure means the disk or command isn't compatible with the current kickstart.

(KS2.x+ does have some of those in ROM though)

[DamienD]

Agree with you Akira

[Jope]

Originally Posted by emufan

what's missing here, is a simple 'dir' command.
wonder why they forgot to put one into the kickstart.

The 256k ROM space of 1.x was so tight that they had to leave all the ROM resident commands out. Even 2.x/3.x is very skimpy on those, cd and echo are there, but still nothing to list the contents of a volume..

[emufan]

Originally Posted by Jope

cd and echo are there

dir instead of cd/echo, since you can start sys:c/example,
but with cd/echo you have no clue what's on the disk