keropi wrote:

If you don't resort to cracked image files then the GOTEK is nothing more than a workbench and unprotected software loader.

What roughly % of TOSEC adf images may work with GOTEK ?
Are there other compilations, maybe in other format, with higher % of images suited for GOTEK ?

stock A600 with 2MB chipmem

A600 has no numpad keys used in some games. Don't know how much games are affected.

Tertz wrote:

A600 has no numpad keys used in some games. Don't know how much games are affected.

For Workbench software, there is a numpad emulator program. Works much like laptops, where a certain key-combo will enable an overlaid numpad on the regular keys. I've used that on my A600 in the past, to use the drum-feature in ProTracker. Should also work with DOS-based games, where you can load the numpad emu before loading the game.
Might have been this one: http://aminet.net/package/util/boot/KPatch11
Or this one: http://aminet.net/package/util/misc/npad-373

Just make sure you have some other means than original/copied disks to play games. I have hundreds of copied disks for A500 and about 40-50% of them are already unreadable. Same goes with the original game disks. I actually have a box full of NOS games that wont work anymore.

Scali wrote:

No, *your* ego is in the way.

this comes from someone that wrote this:

Scali wrote:

[...] I mean, hello? You know who you're talking to, right? Long-time Amiga scener/hacker (just because I worked on 8088 MPH doesn't mean PC is 'my platform', read my 'Just keeping it real'-series from the start. From part 2 onwards, I cover Amiga, and later parts also cover C64).
Trying to call me clueless is pretty ridiculous.

Sure, I am the egomaniac... 🤣 🤣

Scali wrote:

I have not spread *any* misinformation whatsoever [...]

Sure you haven't , didn't even had to look much - examples in a single post:

Scali wrote:

WHDLoad requires more memory/overhead than the original software, and requires specific patches for games to even work, in most cases (HDDs weren't exactly standard in the 80s/early 90s, even in A1200s, and most games were not designed with HDD in mind at all, so they cannot be installed to HDD at all, and can only run from floppy).

Everything except the "more ram requirement" is total bs and shitposting, ofcourse whdload patches games and ofcourse it's point is to run games from HDD on newer amigas, once again it is irrelevant if a game supported hdd install or not. This is all stuff you would't even consider writing if you had the slightest idea about what whdload is.

Scali wrote:

With a Gotek you can run unmodified Amiga software, and it runs as it was intended.

This is bs 100% since we are discussing running old game images. Once again if the protection is there then the gotek won't cut it.

I have better things to do than writing the same stuff again and again to you or deal with your crap like "strawman arguments" or "whdload fanboy" or whatever you come up with to derail and conceal the fact that you are making bs arguments just because you can't have a nobody like me exposing your ignorance on the subject - the great amiga scener/hacker just can't have that, can he?

Sorry to interrupt a good flamewar but...

I know I went through quite a process with my A600 to get it to run anything. I got it without any disks at all and had to find some way of writing some from my PC. This was before my CF kit arrived so I couldn't just copy stuff across in UAE and I wasn't going to get a catweasel etc just for that.

I discovered a diagram online for making an LPT to floppy adapter that allowed me to write 880k ADF images across the LPT port to a normal 1.44MB PC floppy drive. I built the cable and sent across an image of an Amiga boot disk. It took me about 10 attempts but eventually one of my boot disks booted my Amiga properly to the command line (AmigaDOS?). Possibly due to me only having 1.44MB HD disks but also probably due to the timing of the parallel port signals.

The boot disk I wrote had software that allowed me to boot the Amiga and link the parallel ports of my Amiga and PC, which would allow me to write ADF images across to the Amiga which would then write the data to an 880k formatted disk in the Amiga's disk drive. I soldered up the transfer cable, figured out how to format a disk in AmigaDOS and eventually created some proper boot disks for the Amiga. That finally allowed me to run a few games.

Quite a mission but a fun one at least. I'd say that if you are getting an Amiga and insist on using real disks you must at least get a boot disk with the machine. Making one from scratch might not be everyone's idea of fun.

keropi wrote:

Sure, I am the egomaniac... 🤣 🤣

I've been an active Amiga user since the early 90s, and have written a series of blogs on coding the Amiga hardware. I don't see what that has to do with 'ego'. I just point to these facts, to prove that I know a thing or two about using Amigas, to debunk your attacks at me not knowing anything about Amigas.

keropi wrote:

Scali wrote:

WHDLoad requires more memory/overhead than the original software, and requires specific patches for games to even work, in most cases (HDDs weren't exactly standard in the 80s/early 90s, even in A1200s, and most games were not designed with HDD in mind at all, so they cannot be installed to HDD at all, and can only run from floppy).

Everything except the "more ram requirement" is total bs and shitposting

Okay, so removing the 'more ram requirement', "Everything" boils down to:
"and requires specific patches for games to even work, in most cases" -> This is a simple fact, that is exactly how WHDLoad works.
See also http://www.whdload.de/docs/en/whatfor.html:

To install a program, a so called "Slave" must be written. The Slave is the interface between the program and WHDLoad, and co-ordinates the reading and writing of files.

A big part of the WHDLoad package is a collection of these slave/installer files. If a slave does not exist for a certain piece of software, you cannot run it via WHDLoad. Can just anyone write a slave? Let's see: http://www.whdload.de/docs/en/need.html

... to write new Slaves / install programs •recommended is a 68030+ with MMU to use all features of WHDLoad (a fat machine is al […]
Show full quote

... to write new Slaves / install programs
•recommended is a 68030+ with MMU to use all features of WHDLoad (a fat machine is always a good choice to develop software 😉)
•know how about machinecode, assembler, amiga hardware ...
•an assembler (should be able to optimize)
•some other tools will be useful (hexedit, disasm, ...)
•some more MiB's RAM
•access to different machines for testing reasons (68000 - 68060, OCS, AGA, GfxCard)
•a hardware or software freezer like AR3, HRTmon, TK
•an NMI button to interrupt a running program or to enter a software-monitor/freezer

I think that is a solid 'no'.

And:
"(HDDs weren't exactly standard in the 80s/early 90s, even in A1200s, and most games were not designed with HDD in mind at all, so they cannot be installed to HDD at all, and can only run from floppy)."
Again, this is a simple fact. The most popular Amiga of all time is the A500 by far, and it did not even have a HD interface on board by default. Harddisks for A500 were extremely expensive, and most Amiga users could not afford them.
The A600 and A1200 could be bought either with or without a HD installed.
As such, most of the Amiga world in the 80s and early 90s was floppy-based. Most games boot directly from floppy, and are NDOS-floppies. They cannot be read by the OS, and therefore you cannot copy their contents onto your HDD, and run them.
The whole point of WHDLoad is to work around this fact. So the fact that WHDLoad even exists, proves how right I am.

So, where is the 'total bs and shitposting'?
Right, baseless accusations as I said.

Tertz wrote:

keropi wrote:

If you don't resort to cracked image files then the GOTEK is nothing more than a workbench and unprotected software loader.

What roughly % of TOSEC adf images may work with GOTEK ?
Are there other compilations, maybe in other format, with higher % of images suited for GOTEK ?

It's not as simple as a percentage since you'll be using cracked games... I suppose if you have the same specs as the cracker's amiga then chances are high things will work. Last year that I had my A500/KS1.3/gotek setup I remember distinctively that out of all the Turrican 1 and 2 versions on TOSEC archive only 2x Turrican1 and 1x Turrican2 sets worked OK on my amiga. The other either hang or crashed. It took some tries and time to find the versions that worked. If money is an issue then gotek is OK, if you can spare more there are other solutions that require less trial-and-error/time.

I don't know any other amiga ADF compilation for GOTEK usage...

@Scali
You are like a broken record, it's both useless and annoying.
Even you should understand that at this point I don't care to answer to you or even bother to read your "arguments" on the subject. Please stop quoting me here, I'll have nothing to do anymore with your bs. Thank you.

keropi wrote:

@Scali
You are like a broken record, it's both useless and annoying.
Even you should understand that at this point I don't care to answer to you or even bother to read your "arguments" on the subject. Please stop quoting me here, I'll have nothing to do anymore with your bs. Thank you.

What you mean is:
"Yes, Scali, you are right. Everything you said about WHDLoad is absolutely correct. I apologize for saying you don't know anything about WHDLoad, and for insulting you for no reason".
I will report you for again calling me out for "bs", even though I clearly proved everything I said is correct.

Scali, I've been watching this thread and if I feel compelled to post this observation: I've noticed you quite often seem to engage in heated arguments on the forum. For example, I remember you involving me in some Midi debate a while ago and you wouldn't let go - I just gave up in the end as I couldn't be bothered trying to "win"...

Now, I'm sure you're an expert in your field but no one is right all the time about everything, are they? 😀

AnacreonZA wrote:

Sorry to interrupt a good flamewar but... […]
Show full quote

Sorry to interrupt a good flamewar but...

I know I went through quite a process with my A600 to get it to run anything. I got it without any disks at all and had to find some way of writing some from my PC. This was before my CF kit arrived so I couldn't just copy stuff across in UAE and I wasn't going to get a catweasel etc just for that.

I discovered a diagram online for making an LPT to floppy adapter that allowed me to write 880k ADF images across the LPT port to a normal 1.44MB PC floppy drive. I built the cable and sent across an image of an Amiga boot disk. It took me about 10 attempts but eventually one of my boot disks booted my Amiga properly to the command line (AmigaDOS?). Possibly due to me only having 1.44MB HD disks but also probably due to the timing of the parallel port signals.

The boot disk I wrote had software that allowed me to boot the Amiga and link the parallel ports of my Amiga and PC, which would allow me to write ADF images across to the Amiga which would then write the data to an 880k formatted disk in the Amiga's disk drive. I soldered up the transfer cable, figured out how to format a disk in AmigaDOS and eventually created some proper boot disks for the Amiga. That finally allowed me to run a few games.

Quite a mission but a fun one at least. I'd say that if you are getting an Amiga and insist on using real disks you must at least get a boot disk with the machine. Making one from scratch might not be everyone's idea of fun.

There was another alternative , much easier IMHO: you could get a CF and an IDE->CF adapter for your A600.
Then setup WinUAE in a pc and have it use the CF as an amiga HDD.
Using workbench images - or better yet ClassicWB setups - you would partition/format the CF in winuae just like you would with an amiga and when all is done move the CF to the A600 and have it boot to workbench. If you needed to transfer some files/images then all is a matter of using the CF with WinUAE, share a pc folder and make the transfers on the pc. 😎

MMaximus wrote:

Now, I'm sure you're an expert in your field but no one is right all the time about everything, are they? 😀

I don't claim any such thing.
However, things like Amiga and MIDI are my fields, and I am not actually wrong (I point directly to WHDLoad docs that support what I say. So it's pretty obvious that I am not just going to accept it when someone claims I am "talking bs and spreading misinformation" and don't know anything about WHDLoad. I know about WHDLoad and its limitations, just trying to help people understand the pros and cons of various ways of using an Amiga).

Scali wrote:

MMaximus wrote:

Now, I'm sure you're an expert in your field but no one is right all the time about everything, are they? 😀

I don't claim any such thing.
However, things like Amiga and MIDI are my fields, and I am not actually wrong (I point directly to WHDLoad docs that support what I say. So it's pretty obvious that I am not just going to accept it when someone claims I am "talking bs and spreading misinformation" and don't know anything about WHDLoad. I know about WHDLoad and its limitations, just trying to help people understand the pros and cons of various ways of using an Amiga).

Still spreading misinformation , and pasting irrelevant requirements. So pathetic. You even copied the development requirements, like people here want to write slaves and not just run their games. Let me help you with that with the actual USAGE requirements:

http://whdload.de/docs/en/need.html

Requirements […]
Show full quote

Requirements

... to run installed programs:

CPU 68000 (68010+ is recommended because some installs require the VBR for the 'quit by a key' feature)
Kickstart 2.0 (version 37)
a minimum of 1.0 MiB RAM (sometimes more, it depends on the installed program)

So it's not that you are clueless about what whdload is, you can't even read English apparently. You are so delusional that you will go to extreme lengths to prove that "you are right". Bad news for you I guess since another of your stellar "argument" is debunked. So sad.

... btw , what do the voices in your head tell you this post means? That you are awesome perhaps? 🤣 🤣 🤣

keropi wrote:

Still spreading misinformation , and pasting irrelevant requirements. So pathetic. You even copied the development requirements, like people here want to write slaves and not just run their games.

Read my post clearly.
I didn't post them as 'system requirements' but as 'what kind of user would be able to create installers for software that is not already supported by WHDLoad?'.

A big part of the WHDLoad package is a collection of these slave/installer files. If a slave does not exist for a certain piece of software, you cannot run it via WHDLoad. Can just anyone write a slave? Let's see:
...
I think that is a solid 'no'.

So who can't read properly? You seem completely blinded by your rage, unable to think straight, and just lashing out wildly. Take a chill pill.

MMaximus wrote:

Scali, I've been watching this thread and if I feel compelled to post this observation: I've noticed you quite often seem to engage in heated arguments on the forum. For example, I remember you involving me in some Midi debate a while ago and you wouldn't let go - I just gave up in the end as I couldn't be bothered trying to "win"...

Now, I'm sure you're an expert in your field but no one is right all the time about everything, are they? 😀

Keeping out of it..... Not going to take sides. (though attempting, MUCH. I must say 🤣)

With Atari you copy the game to a floppy with your modern PC and runs it using any Motorola 68k Atari. *Ducks and runs for cover* 😁

Thanks for the input everyone! I guess I'll try to get an 1MB 500 model - they seem to be the best option for me since all I plan to do is run old games off a floppy. Not interested in running an OS, wifi or other neat things they can do. I'll try to snag a 600 if I can find a complete on for less then 120$ shipped.

If you start to really enjoy the A500, there are a few expansions that aren't madly expensive, but will make a huge difference to your experience. First off, Kipper's 4/8MB CF adapter board. It adds 4MB or 8MB of fastram (depending which model you get) and a CF slot so you can add a CF as a hard drive. You'll also need a new kickstart rom, 2.04 or higher to enable auto-booting of the hard drive.

http://www.kipper2k.com/a500fastmem.html

Secondly, Lallafa's Plipbox. It uses an Arduino to connect your Amiga to an Ethernet network via the parallel port on the Amiga. Makes transferring files to the HDD much easier.

http://lallafa.de/blog/amiga-projects/plipbox/

Thirdly, a 512K chipram expansion (That's if the A500 you get doesn't have it already) so that you have a full 1MB chipmem. Most WHDload games require 1MB chipram to run and a few floppy games require it as well.

Finally, if you do decide to use WHDload a lot, get a 68010 CPU, it'll allow you to quit games and go back to the desktop without having to reset the machine every time.

Skyscraper wrote:

With Atari you copy the game to a floppy with your modern PC and runs it using any Motorola 68k Atari. *Ducks and runs for cover* 😁

Yea, on Amiga I used to do that in two steps 😀
You can install a driver to read 720k MS-DOS floppies from Workbench with your Amiga drive.
With DMS files you can create compressed images of (parts of) disks. So if you are lucky, a ~900 KB Amiga disk can fit in 720k after compression. Otherwise you can split it into two DMS images. You can then transfer the DMS images to/from PC on 720K MS-DOS images, and write them to a real Amiga floppy.

orcish75 wrote:

Thirdly, a 512K chipram expansion (That's if the A500 you get doesn't have it already) so that you have a full 1MB chipmem. Most WHDload games require 1MB chipram to run and a few floppy games require it as well.

The A500 trapdoor can not support chipmem. Technically it would be fastmem. However, due to a design flaw, it is actually what is known as 'slowmem'. That is: the CPU is locked out during chip access like with chipmem, so it is not 'fast'. At the same time, the chipset cannot address this part of memory either, so it is not 'chip'.

With Atari you copy the game to a floppy with your modern PC and runs it using any Motorola 68k Atari. *Ducks and runs for cover* 😁

🤣!!! I was an Atari ST fanboy back in the day, got my 520STE in 1990. I only got my Amigas much later on, around 2001 or so. I got two A500's, an A2000 with a GVP '030 accelerator, a Microbotics VXL-30 accelerator with a 2MB ram board and 2 GVP HDD/ram sidecars for 2000 Rand (approx $250 US at the time).

Can't believe the prices of Amiga stuff these days, I don't bother buying anymore, especially now that our currency is so crap!

The A500 trapdoor can not support chipmem. Technically it would be fastmem. However, due to a design flaw, it is actually what is known as 'slowmem'. That is: the CPU is locked out during chip access like with chipmem, so it is not 'fast'. At the same time, the chipset cannot address this part of memory either, so it is not 'chip'.

Depending on how the motherboard is configured, you might need to change a couple of jumpers to convert the trapdoor expansion from slowmem to chipmem. There are a lot of articles on Amiga websites on how to do this.

http://aminet.net/package/docs/hard/1MBChip

I've done this on both my A500's and added a DKB Megachip on the one for 2MB chipmem.