ACAS - Your Amiga FAQ

Helping you to sleep more easy at night, ACAS will soothe all your troubles away
Send your letters in to:

ACAS, Amiga Computing, Media House, Adlington Park, Macclesfield, Cheshire, UK, SK10 4NP or e-mail us: acas@idg.co.uk

Simple questions

Please help me by answering a few, I hope, simple questions.

I have heard the A1200 IDE can handle 2-3 devices, is this true? If so would it be able to handle an IDE CD-ROM? I do have some CD Drivers.
Am I right in assuming that a HD connected to a 286 Motherboard would be an IDE drive?
When I use Urouhack the sizing of some scrolling gadgets appears corrupt on certain programs, such as MultiView and DiskMaster II. Any ideas why?
When I try to load Nemac IV it says "can't locate BM". What is BM?
After installing some software such as DPaint IV and Gloom, when I come to load it I get the message "Unable to open your Tool Gloom" or whatever title I'm using. I have tried using DOSTrace to find out what is wrong, but all I get is the message "Unable to find Segmented Image", which is no good to me because I don't know what a segmented image is. Do you know why this software will not run from my hard drive?

Alan Bailey, London

Well yes, no and no. Any IDE interface can handle up to two drives daisy chained together, so in theory the A1200 IDE interface can take two hard drives being connected to it. The problem you are going to have is how are you going to fit two IDE drives into an A1200? There is barley enough room to fit one 3.5" drive, never mind two 2.5" drives, unless you fancy having a hard drive dangling out of the side of you machine.
If you have a tower system then you do have the room and can therefore have two drives on your A1200 IDE interface. The problem with IDE drives is that you need to make one the master and the other drive the slave. This involves changing a jumper on the two drives, and unless this is marked on the drive you are going to have to ring up the manufacturers to find out what the correct settings are.
If you want to add another hard drive there are a couple of possibilities available to you. You have the usual Squirrel or DataFlyer option that will allow you to hook up an external SCSI drive. SCSI drives also have the advantage that they need their own power supply, so your poor old A1200 PSU is not put under any extra stress.
To confuse things further there is a new(ish) standard called E-IDE, pronounced e-d-e I think. This is basically an extension of IDE and allows four devices to be connected to it and is faster. It is also the new hard drive interface on the Walker.
IDE CD drives are another kettle of fish. It is possible use an IDE CD drive with your A1200, but you need an ATAPI device driver. Currently, the only one I know of comes with the AmiCDFS software which is a very good suite of CD utilities.
A drive fitted to a 286 board is not necessarily going to be an IDE drive, but it probably is. The simplest way to tell is that an IDE interface will have 41 pins, and a 2.5" drive has four more on the right for power and a 3.5" drive has four large power pins.
According to the UrouHack author, the problem is not with Urouhack but with the programs you are running. These programs do not take into account the possibility that the size of the window borders can change. Therefore, when Urouhack changes the proportional scroll bar and arrows, these programs don't recognise this and ask the operating system to draw them as if they were the original size. To prove that the author is right, the version of MultiView in Workbench 3.1 does not suffer from this problem because the programmers have fixed it.
BM stands for BitMap. The Nemac IV demo is quite large and needs as much memory as possible. This means that if you are trying to run it from a hard drive it is possible that you will not have enough memory available, particularly if you are running a lot of utilities or have a large Workbench running a lot of colours. Your best bet is to quit as many applications as possible, remove any external devices, and reduce the size of your Workbench screen. On the Nemac IV config window there is an option to use small textures which are of a lower quality but use a lot less memory.
We have no idea what is wrong with your hard drive problem. We recently had the same problem with a second IDE drive that we installed on our A4000, and the problem seemed to go away when I reset the max transfer rate and mask to their default values of 0xfffffffe and 0xffffff. However, if this is not the problem then I'm not sure what is.

Amiga server

I have a question about the Internet and the Amiga. I'm thinking about starting an ISP in my area. Would the Amiga 4000T with a 68060 running NetBSD Unix be a reliable setup for running an ISP? I have been told to stay away from using a PC as they start to bog down under that kind of pressure.

The one machine that was recommended to me was the DEC Alpha. Have you come across any Amiga-based ISPs? If so, how are they doing? I figured Unix would be the way to go because from the experience I've had with Unix operating systems, the Internet facilities are pretty much built in. If you have any advice for a fellow Amiga user, I'd be grateful.
RSKamiga@aol.com

You will be glad to know that there are a number of Amiga's out there being used as ISPs. One example would be the Amiga that Vapourware's support pages are running off which is an A3000T. As well as handling mail it works as an FTP and WWW server for a good number of people - its statistics show it has quiet a few thousand accesses a day. I have also heard about an ISP in Sweden run from Amigas.

Generally, it is assumed that the Amiga's own Internet software is very good - apparently the Web server software is excellent, allowing as many user connections as memory permits. Much of the PC's server software only allows up to 256 connections. If you feel easier using Unix software then there is no reason why you should not go that way.

Serial printer

Last year I bought an A1200 with a Hewlett Packard desk writer ink jet printer. At the time of purchase the chap who sold it to me explained that the printer was designed for use with an Apple Mac computer and he had modified it to work with the Amiga serial port which involved a software patch and a cable modification.

All worked well until the hard drive crashed. No problem, I thought, as I had backed up the Devs drawer, including the printer driver I had been using. So I reinstalled all the software and set up the system to how it was before the crash and all seemed fine until I tried the printer. Now I cannot get it to print anything. In fact the only response I get from the printer is that when I run Ncomm it prints ATZ and then locks up Ncomm.

I am now wondering if there was something else needed to run this printer that I did not backup. Do you know of any programs available that will let me use this printer again? If not, do you know anybody who wants to buy a printer for an Apple Mac?
S Mahoney, Gosport

As far as I know, all Mac printers are serial, but this is no problem because the Amiga will work with printers connected through either the parallel or serial interface. Generally with printers on the Amiga, if you have the correct printer driver then you should have no real problem getting it to work.

I used to have an old ImageSetter II printer, which is a printer made by Apple, and had the unusual round connector that the Mac uses. As the Amiga comes with an ImageSetter driver all I had to do to get the printer working was get hold of an IBM to Mac serial cable, making sure the Amiga end was a 25-pin male D plug, and in the printer preferences set the printer port to Serial. You will also have to set the serial preferences to that of the printer specifications.

Finally, there is no need for a software or cable patch, as long have you have the driver, and I think any HP desk jet driver will do. Make sure you set the printer port to serial and the printer should then work. As Ncomm can send an ATZ signal to the printer, it therefore shows that the printer is receiving data. One last point. I think it is normal that Ncomm locks up before printing as it is waiting for a response from a modem.

Assigns assumptions

I have been having terrible problems getting the Lottery program from your May issue. I have managed to get the program off the coverdisk and copied it onto my hard drive, but every time I try to run the program a window pops up asking for me to insert the analyser disk. The same happens when I try to use the install program that comes with it. What do I have to do to get the program working?
Simon Reeves, Bury

Unfortunately, the problem you are having is one that afflicts every Amiga user. Many programs have extra files that they have to access and to make it easier to find them, for the program anyway, an assign is used.

In the case of Lottery, if you drag its drawer into your work drive then open a shell and type assign analyser: work:lotto, this will allow you to get Lotto up and running. You should also add this line anywhere in your S:user-startup so that each time you start your Amiga the assign will be automatically made.

On the Amiga, every device that is connected has a cunningly titled device name - for example, the internal floppy's device name is DF0. Along with this, every disk has a logical name, so if you put a formatted floppy in the internal drive you can refer to it either as DF0: or as Empty: which is its logical name. Now, as logical names do not have to refer to an actual physical disk it is possible to create your own logical names using the Assign command.

When you run a program that requires assigns to be made, if they do not exist the Amiga operating system thinks the program is asking for a disk to be inserted. This is why when you try to run the Lotto program you get the insert disk requester, but once the assign has been made the OS is fooled into thinking the Analyser disk actually exists and directs all of Lotto's disk access to the assigned directory.

SCSI chain gang

As a transfer subscriber to your magazine from Amiga World, I read all the columns, particularly the beginners corner and ACAS, from which I've gleaned several helpful tips from these little mines of information. I now find myself needing some of your inestimable knowledge of the Amiga, namely how to add a CD-ROM drive to my system which already has a SCSI hard drive attached.

My system is an Amiga 2000 with a GVP G-Force 68030 accelerator (which has the SCSI driver on-board) and a Quantum 540LPS hard drive running under AmigaDOS 3.1. The CD-ROM drive I purchased is a Sony CSD-76SB. Both the CD-ROM drive and the hard drive are internally mounted - the hard drive is on the controller card and the CD-ROM is mounted in the 5-1/4" drive bay.

My question is about the cabling required to connect these devices to the GVP controller. Is it necessary only to have a 50-pin ribbon cable with 3 connectors attached, or is each device supposed to have a second connector for 'daisy-chaining' to additional devices? Neither the GVP manual nor the Sony manual is clear on this point.

If just a single cable with three connectors is the answer, I can make the cable myself. I understand about the terminating resistors, and since the CD-ROM does have the terminators installed, it will become the 'end' device. I have no idea if the hard drive has the terminators as there are none visible and no documentation of any sort came with the hard drive. Am I required to purchase an additional SCSI controller card for the second device?
Andy Rakaczky, Sun Valley USA. andy@bally.com

The cabling for internal SCSI chains is the same situation as you have with IDE drives - you just need, as you have thought, a 3-way 50-pin ribbon connector. In fact, you can have all seven SCSI devices connected internally, you just have to keep adding ribbon connectors to the existing ribbon. You can still only have a maximum of seven devices connected to the SCSI card be they either internal or external.

If you want to add extra internal drives you will probably find that your main problem is the lack of room. One way around this would be to make yourself a Zorro II shaped card out of plastic and mount the extra drives on this. Internal power isn't really a problem with a 2000 as they have quite a beefy power supply that is more than up to the job.

MUI madness

As a beginner on this system, could you give me some guidance as to where I am going wrong and to help with the problems I am having?

I recently went from MUI 2.3 to MUI 3.1 and am having a lot of problems trying to get it to work. I have moved the MUI icon with the '?' symbol to my prefs drawer and assigned MUI to my Work partition but nothing seems to be working as before.
I used to have an icon on my startup screen called MUIEnv which housed all my system variables, including my Mosaic settings. On startup I am getting the message "MUIEnv failed to return should I wait some more", and if I cancel this requester it comes up with MUIEnv failed.
When I start Mosaic I get the message "failed to create appicon" which also happens with MetaMail and MetaTool. Where should the Mui Icons in the freshly created MUI drawer be put, e.g. MUIPrefs to Workbench:Prefs drawer? etc. I am informed by my machine when I try to start some applications that I require MUI 3 or above to run the applications. I have installed it so why do these requesters still appear?
Where does MetaTool belong and how do you set it up?
After upgrading my Hard Drive from a 120Mb 2.5" to the 3.5" 540Mb E-IDE Seagate one every 20 or so switch ons I get a loud blast of music followed by an arrow formed into a triangle appearing on my screen with the wording 'OPTIMISED FOR BEST WORKBENCH PERFORMANCE' below the arrow. In the bottom left-hand corner of the screen the Dolby trademark appears with the wording 'Dolby Surround' beside it. I have to switch off and start again when this happens. Where does this come from? Is it a virus of some sort and how can I get rid of it?
My monitor is the Commodore 1084ST, and on the front there is a switch for RGB or CVBS-LCA. What is this for? Can I use it for a better resolution? At the moment I use the Amiga's Video output with the switch in the RGB position.

M Parker, Tullibody matt@mparker.demon.co.uk

It sounds like you are having a right barrel of laughs installing MUI. Firstly, since version 2 of MUI all the relative files are kept in a single MUI directory, and two very important assigns are made so the operating system and MUI programs can find all the right files.
If you have kept things as they were from the original installation, when you install MUI 3 it simply renames the old MUI directory to MUI.old and creates a new one with all the correct new files. If you have fiddled about with the earlier version, perhaps moving library files out of the drawer, then you are going to have problems. Your best bet is to go through your user-startup and remove any lines mentioning MUI. There should be two lines ;BEGIN MUI and ;END MUI, and you should remove these lines and everything between them.
You now need to go through your system and delete the old MUI drawers and any of the files you may have moved out of the original drawer. Once you have done this, reset your machine and reinstall MUI. This will make sure all the assigns and files are correct. If you now want to move the MUI preferences into your Prefs drawer that is alright.
Some people have reported problems trying to run MUI programs after installing MUI. This is probably due to incompatibilities with older preferences, and you should probably delete the MUI drawer in the Envarc directory. Open a shell and type delete envarc:mui.
MetaTool is a stand-alone e-mail package, and before you can run it it requires a number of environmental variables to be set. This is normally done for you when you use AmiTCP's startnet script or most of the AmiTCP front-ends such as AmConnect or AmiTCPHelper.
Once you have extracted the MetaTool archive there is really no other installation needed, as long as the environmental variables are set correctly with the SetEnv command. The only thing you may have to change is the MailCap text file. This tells MetaTool which programs you want to display as different filetypes. Therefore, you may want to change the default MultiView entry to FastView or whichever program you prefer.
The program that is causing this annoying screen to appear is the MagicWB-Demon line in your startup-sequence. This is the program that makes sure your MagicWB icons look correct on screens with more than eight colours. Unfortunately, the programmer took it upon himself to add that little extra.
On most machines this does not crash it but it does hold up the boot process and is very annoying. Just delete this line and you will not be troubled with it any more. The down side is that you need a replacement program to remap the screen colours when you change the screen. MultiCX is a good choice and gives you a shed load of other features in to boot.
The CVBS-LCA is there if you are using a composite input which means you cannot get any better picture using it. If you select it when using an RGB input you will just end up with a blank screen.