BTTR Emulation Guide 1.0 / Configuration Files 4.07 =================================================== (c) 2000 Ralf Steines (Hippie2000/BTTR), Juergen Beck (Bobic/BTTR), BTTR - Back to the Roots - http://back2roots.emuunlim.com 0. INTRODUCTION 1. AMIGA EMULATION 1.1 Amiga Emulators 1.1.1 Fellow 1.1.2 UAE 1.2 The Amiga-OS 1.2.1 Kickstart ROM images 1.2.2 Workbench disk images 1.2.3 Amiga-OS versions 1.3 Amiga Software 1.3.1 The Aminet 1.3.2 Back to the Roots 2. CONFIGURING THE EMULATOR 2.1 The BTTR config files 2.1.1 ecs13 config 2.1.2 ecs13c config 2.1.3 ecs20 config 2.1.4 ecs30 config 2.1.5 ecs31 config 2.1.6 aga30 config 2.1.7 ocs12 config 2.1.8 ocs13 config 2.2 Manual configuration 2.2.1 Configurations menu 2.2.2 RAM menu 2.2.3 ROM menu 2.2.4 CPU menu 2.2.5 Display menu 2.2.6 Game I/O Ports menu 2.2.7 Misc. menu 2.2.8 About menu 2.2.9 Sound menu 2.2.10 Floppies menu 2.2.11 Hard Drives menu 2.3 Tips and Tricks 2.3.1 Controlling games 2.3.2 Changing Disks 2.3.3 Saving within games 2.3.4 Quitting emulation / Rebooting 2.3.5 Graphics problems 2.3.6 WinUAE seems slow 2.3.7 Some programs don't work 3. FLOPPY DRIVE EMULATION 3.1 DMS ARCHIVES (*.dms) 3.1.1 Handling DMS archives on an Amiga 3.1.2 Handling DMS archives on a PC 3.2 ADF IMAGES (*.adf) 3.2.1 Handling ADF images on an Amiga 3.2.2 Handling ADF images on a PC 3.3 ADZ IMAGES (*.adz *.adf.gz) 3.3.1 Handling ADZ images on an Amiga 3.2.2 Handling ADZ images on a PC 3.4 ZIP ARCHIVES (*.zip) 3.4.1 Handling ZIP archives on an Amiga 3.4.2 Handling ZIP archives on a PC 4. HARD DRIVE EMULATION 4.1 Hard disk files (*.hdf) 4.2 Mounted directories 4.3 Mounting all PC drives 4.4 Installing the Amiga-OS 5. LEGAL STUFF 5.1 Copyright 5.2 Distribution 5.3 Disclaimer 5.4 Credits 5.5 Trademarks 0. INTRODUCTION =============== This guide's intention is to share the infos we collect at BTTR while answering questions to the Amiga emulator users and to the 'real' Amiga owners. It's dedicated to beginners, as well as to the experienced people. This guide will change pretty often, so make sure that you check for a recent version at http://back2roots.emuunlim.com/Tools/Files/EmuGuide/ Also, in case you find a mistake in here, have suggestions or just feel lucky then please report it using the online feedback form at http://back2roots.emuunlim.com/About/Email/ 1. AMIGA EMULATION ================== For a long time it seemed impossible to emulate such a complex computer as the Amiga, but today two different working emulators exist, one of them even ported to many different platforms. This chapter will give you a basic introduction to Amiga emulation. To run an Amiga emulator, you need a fast computer, the emulator itself, the Amiga-OS, and some software you want to run on it. 1.1 Amiga Emulators ------------------- An Amiga Emulator is the piece of software which simulates the Amiga hardware on another computer (or even on an Amiga). Currently, two working Amiga emulators exist, called 'Fellow' and 'UAE'. 1.1.1 Fellow ------------ Fellow: The first Amiga emulator, started by Petter Schau, coded in x86 Assembler to be run under M$DOS. It is pretty fast and requires a less powerful computer due to being written in Assembler. Fellow was recently discontinued by Petter Schau, but still is available. Check the homepage at: http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Peaks/5244/ 1.1.2 UAE --------- UAE is portable GNU C project, started by Bernd Schmidt. UAE is the more evolved emulator, and can even emulate graphic cards using the Picasso96 screen driver system. - *nix UAE: UAE is written in GNU C under linux, and has been ported to many platforms including other *nix systems. The main UAE homepage and the sources for all *nix platforms can be found at: http://www.freiburg.linux.de/~uae/ - WinUAE: The Win32 port of UAE, requires DirectX installed, and at least a PII CPU for good results, but it is the most famous port of UAE. WinUAE has it's own homepage at http://www.codepoet.com/UAE/ - Other platfroms: UAE has also been ported to Mac and M$DOS, as well as to 68K Amigas and PPC Amigas. A complete list of all UAE ports we know can be found at: http://back2roots.emuunlim.com/Tools/Emulation/Emulators/ 1.2 The Amiga-OS ---------------- Since hardware alone (even emulated one) is not enough to run a computer you also need an operating system to get an emulated Amiga to life. The Amiga-OS consists of two parts, the 'Kickstart ROM' and the 'workbench disks'. Both are required to get a full working emulated Amiga, and need to be present as binary images, that's why they are called 'Kickstart ROM images' and 'Workbench disk images'. The Amiga-OS is a copyrighted commercial software product, and is not freely distributable. There are two legal ways to get the required images for usage with emulators, you may transfer them from an Amiga you own, or you may purchase a licensed copy from http://www.cloanto.com/amiga/forever/ 1.2.1 Kickstart ROM images -------------------------- The Kickstart ROM is a piece of hardware built in (nearly) any existing Amiga, which contains a part of the Amiga-OS which is required to boot an Amiga. (for PC users: may be compared to the BIOS but it is far more). Any amiga emulator requires a binary copy of a kickstart ROM to run, and will use the ROM image as an emulated piece of hardware. All Amiga emulators come with a tiny utility to save the content of the Kickstart ROM of any real Amiga to an image. (just A3000 ROMS do not work with emulators). 1.2.2 Workbench disk images --------------------------- The second part of the Amiga-OS are the Workbench disks, which usually come with an original Amiga. The workbench is the Amiga's GUI interface, and is required to run most application programs. Emulators need a binary copy of these disks to use the full Amiga-OS. All Amiga emulators come with a tiny utility to create ADF disk images from existing Amiga disks on any real Amiga. Emulators mount disk images as virtual floppy disks, so these may be accessed from within the emulated Amiga as if they were real Amiga disks. Read more about ADF and other disk image formats in chapter 3. 1.2.3 Amiga-OS versions ----------------------- There are many different versions of the Amiga-OS, which can be grouped in 1.x, 2.x and 3.x versions. Very often programs depend on a specific version of the Amiga-OS, so it's good to know the basics of all versions for a better understanding how to run programs from different Amiga eras. - Amiga-OS 1.x: When the Amiga 1000 came out it came with version 1.0, which required some time until it ran stable. The Amiga 500 came with 1.2 or 1.3, which are the latest 1.x versions and run pretty stable. A lot of software was coded for the 1.x versions, and many programmers did not think of future comaptible coding style in this time, so it's always a good idea to run old software with the 1.3 Kickstart ROM (and workbench disks) as the first trial. - Amiga-OS 2.x: The Amiga-OS got a big rework, which introduced an improved workbench and GUI, and many new principles of coding Amiga software. All programs which were written for this kickstart do not run with 1.x versions, but should run on 3.x versions of the Amiga-OS. So it is not really necessary to have a 2.x Kickstart/Workbench image set at all if you have the 3.x images. - Amiga-OS 3.x: The Amiga-OS and the Amiga hardware got another big rework with the release of the Amiga 1200 and Amiga 4000 computers. The AGA chipset was introduced with enhanced graphics capabilities. There is just one emulator yet which attempts to emulate the AGA chipset. WinUAE version 0.8.8 requires Kickstart 3.x to run software which was written for the AGA chipset. Amiga-OS version 3.x does not require an AGA chipset at all, so all emulators can run OS 3.x anyway. Amiga-OS 3.x is recommended for a 'working' setup of Amiga, and if you are about to meet Amiga-OS the first time then check out a 3.x setup. 1.3 Amiga Software ------------------ It's nice to have an emulated Amiga and the Amiga-OS running on it but that will not keep you interested very long. What you need is Amiga software. There is a lot of Amiga software availlable, and new titles are still being produced. A lot of freeware and shareware was written for the Amiga computer, same as many professional applications. Here some famous sources offering Amiga software for download at no cost: 1.3.1 The Aminet ---------------- For those who do not already know, the Aminet is the world's largest archive of freely distributable Amiga software, such as Freeware, Share- ware and also demo versions of commercial products. Aminet currently stores more than 65,000 archives which all come with an additional 'readme' file informing you about the content of each achive. All files are sorted in a well evolved subject tree, which is of good help when searching software for a specific purpose. http://de.aminet.net/aminet/ Most files on Aminet are stored as LHA/LZH and LZX compressed archives, to unpack these you will need the following Amiga programs: http://de.aminet.net/aminetbin/find?lha_e138 http://de.aminet.net/aminetbin/find?lzx121r1 1.3.2 Back to the Roots ----------------------- Back to the Roots (short: BTTR) is a non profit project offering a large searchable database of Amiga games, demos, music, pictures and tools, with a lot of related information, an Amiga related Web Directory, an Aminet search interface and weekly news. BTTR is a good place for 'real' Amiga users and for emulator users, both will surely like our large collection of commercial amiga games, which all were licensed by the software companies to be offered for download at no cost. http://back2roots.emuunlim.com Most files at BTTR are ADF images stored in ZIP archives, for infos about unpacking these on your computer check out chapter 3.4. 2. CONFIGURING THE EMULATOR =========================== Amiga emulators can emulate many different Amiga models, and so have a bunch of settings, which tell the emulator which hardware you want to emulate. Configuration can usually be done using a GUI, saving the settings into a config file for later usage. The basic concept of configuring an Amiga emulator is the same for all of them, so this chapter shows the configuration of WinUAE as an example. 2.1 The BTTR config files ------------------------- This is a set of predefined configuration files which are the result of testing nearly 5000 mostly bootable Amiga game and demo ADF disks images with several Amiga emulators. This guide comes with these config files, (see config407 folder) but you should check for a recent version at http://back2roots.emuunlim.com/Tools/Emulation/Configs/ To install the configuration files just copy them in the Configurations folder within WinUAE's installation directory. Note that you may need to change the Kickstart image path of all configs to make them work. For a complete list of all ~3800 game compatibility tests check: http://back2roots.emuunlim.com/Games/Game-List/ For a complete list of all ~1200 demo compatibility tests check: http://back2roots.emuunlim.com/Demos/Demo-List/ 2.1.1 ecs13 config ------------------ This config is required to run most bootable ADF images, 79% of all tested ADF images work with this configuration. Requires a Kickstart 1.3 ROM image. Settings: Kick 1.3, 2MB Chip, 8MB Fast, 1MB Slow, Sound emulated 100% accurate, 68000 CPU, Full ECS Chipset, CPU bar to 4, DirectX 6 support, AutoConfig, 32-bit. 2.1.2 ecs13c config ------------------- This config is rarely needed, just 0.7% of all tested programs need it. Requires a Kickstart 1.3 ROM image. Settings: same as ecs13, but 0MB Fast, 0MB Slow. 2.1.3 ecs20 config ------------------ Another rarely used config, just required to run 0.2% of all tested ADFs. Requires a Kickstart 2.0 ROM image. Settings: same as ecs13, but Kick 2.0. 2.1.4 ecs30 config ------------------ Some newer ADF images require this config, about 4% of all tested ADFs. Requires a Kickstart 3.0 ROM image. Settings: same as ecs13, but Kick 3.0. 2.1.5 ecs31 config ------------------ Just a few ADF images require this config, less than 0.1% of all tested ADFs. Requires a Kickstart 3.1 ROM image. Settings: same as ecs13, but Kick 3.1. 2.1.5 aga30 config ------------------ All new programs which were written for the AGA chipset require this config to run, about 14% of all tested ADFs. Requires a Kickstart 3.0 ROM image an WinUAE 0.8.8, the only emulator at the moment which is able to emulate the AGA chipset. Settings: same as ecs13, but Kick 3.0, 68EC020 CPU, AGA Chipset. 2.1.7 ocs12 config ------------------ Some old A500 ADF images require this config, about 0.5% of all tested ADFs. Requires a Kickstart 1.2 ROM image. Settings: same as ecs13, but Kick 1.2, 512KB Chip, 0MB Fast, 512KB Slow, OCS Chipset, Approximate A500 speed, NO AutoConfig, NO 32-bit. 2.1.8 ocs13 config ------------------ Some old A500 ADF images require this config, about 1.3% of all tested ADFs. Requires a Kickstart 1.3 ROM image. Settings: same as ecs13, but Kick 1.3, 512KB Chip, 0MB Fast, 512KB Slow, OCS Chipset, Approximate A500 speed, NO AutoConfig, NO 32-bit. 2.2 Manual configuration ------------------------ The following is a list of all 'tabs' within the WinUAE GUI window. 2.2.1 Configurations Menu ------------------------- Here you may load or save entire configuration sets out of or into 'configuration files'. If you are manually setting a configuration you should save it before you start booting. Just enter a name in the [name] field and maybe a description at the right field and click on save. Next time you start WinUAE you can load the named config file again, and all your settings will be loaded in one go. 2.2.2 RAM menu -------------- Here you can choose how much RAM should be emulated. 1MB Chip mem and 1MB slow mem are enough to run most games, but of course you can set up more. Some games and demos also need fast RAM - it depends on the program which you want to run. 2.2.3 ROM menu -------------- Choose a kickstart ROM image using the [Rom File] field. Kickstart 1.3 is ok for most older games while Kickstart 3.0 is necessary for most newer games. You must choose a kickstart ROM, or 99% of all Amiga programs won't work! The [Key File] is optional, you will not need it usually. [ShapeShifter support] is only important for people who want to emulate a Mac with WinUAE (which really makes sense). 2.2.4 CPU menu -------------- Choose between a large scale of 68K CPU's. An 68000 is perfect for A500 emulation. Newer productions, especially AGA games and demos need an 68020 CPU (or even higher - but higher versions aren't supported yet). The best setting of the [CPU emulation speed] mode depends on your system. Users with slow PCs should activate the [Fastest Possible] mode. If a game runs too fast you should activate the [Approximate A500 speed] mode and it will work perfect. The [adjustable between CPU and chipset] slider is good for everyone. With this slider you can tweak the emulation speed by balancing CPU and chipset power. WinUAE loads the games much faster, than a real Amiga. A few games don't accept this fast loading speed, in this case activate the [slow but more compatible] mode. 2.2.5 Display menu ------------------ You'll only get a perfect Amiga screen if you set the screen mode to 800x600 (if your gfx card supports that). It depends on your monitor and graphic card whether you have to activate something at the [Line Mode], [Centering] or [Settings] menu. Sorry - no absolute solution can be given. Please play around a little bit with these options until you found the best settings for your environment. Also you should click on [detect 16-bit pixel format], if you have installed WinUAE for the first time. Of course a [full-screen] display mode is always the best. You should select the [OCS] chipset, if you want to emulate an A500 or the [AGA] chipset for running AGA software. It also helps sometimes to get a program to run if you select one of the ECS chipsets. 2.2.6 Game I/O Ports menu ------------------------- Normally the default configuration is good for you, so you should not need to change anything at all. Port 0 emulates the mouse, and port 1 the joystick (if you have connected a joystick to your PC). If you want to play games with the keyboard we recommend the keyboard layout [B] (cursor keys plus right strg key for the fire button). 2.2.7 Misc. menu ---------------- Normally no changes are necessary here too. You may activate the [Show LEDs when full-screen] option, it will emulate the floppy LEDs on screen when using full screen display. 2.2.8 About menu ---------------- If you want to visit some interesting Amiga/Amiga emulation related pages in the web, please click on one of the links in here. 2.2.9 Sound menu ---------------- You should always select [Emulated, 100% accurate] as the first choice. This is the best solution for about any game. [Stereo], [Frequency] and [Sample Type] settings depend very much on your system again. Users with a fast PC should activate 44100Hz, 16bit and Stereo mode. 2.2.10 Floppies menu -------------------- Here's the place where you can 'insert' ADF files as virtual floppy disks. Bootable disks should be inserted in Df0:, which is your boot drive. Insert the first disk of a game here and if the program has more disks, insert them in the other drives. Some old games only accept disk drive df0: - you have to change the disk during the emulation. Please read the section 2.3.2 [Changing disks] of this guide. 2.2.11 Hard Drives menu ----------------------- The most complex menu of WinUAE. This menu is of interest, if you like to install the Amiga-OS on a virtual harddisk (recommended to fully emulate an Amiga and/or if you want to run non-bootable applications. If you prefer starting programs from bootable ADF disks, then skip this section. For more info about hard drive emulation check out chapter 4. 2.3 Tips and Tricks ------------------- 2.3.1 Controlling games ----------------------- By default the emulator is configured for playing with your PC joystick or a gamepad. If you want to play with the keyboard, just go to the [Game and I/O Ports] Menu of WinUAE and select one of the keyboard layouts. For example if you select keyboard layout [B] you can control your sprite with the cursor keys and the right strg key as fire button. Games which don't need a joystick can of course be controlled with the mouse. 2.3.2 Changing Disks -------------------- Some (multi-disk) games only accept disks in the df0: drive. You then have to change the disks in this drive while playing. Enter the GUI of the Emulator by pressing the [F12] key. Now go to the floppies menu, click on eject near df0: and select the the second (or 3rd) disk image. Click on OK and the emulator will recognize the new disk. Another trick is also worth to know: Some games do not accept the above method to change disks, they will not recognize the disk change. Try this method then: Enter the GUI with F12, click on eject near df0: then close the GUI again clicking OK. Then enter the GUI again and insert a new ADF image. 2.3.3 Saving within games ------------------------- You can only save within games which offer a save option. For some games you just have to insert an empty disk, which you can easily create with the [Create Blank Floppy] option of WinUAE's Floppies tab. But for the most games you have to format this blank disks with your Workbench first. Boot a workbench, create a blank floppy, select it by clicking it once and choose the "Format disk" option from the Workbench menu. Once the disk is formatted you can use it as a save disk in most games which provide a save function. Some games allow saving on the game disks, which will not work if you mount ADF images from read-only media (such as a CDROM) or if the disk images are ADZ or DMS images which are unpacked 'on the fly'. You then have to copy the disk image to your PC's harddisk first, unpack it to ADF if necessary, and insert the ADF into the emulator from there. See also chapter 3 about handling disk images. Also, many games require a save disk in a special private format. You will then need an ADF image of this special save-disk. Check out our collection of ADF save disk images (including a formatted blank disk) at: http://back2roots.emuunlim.com/Games/Savedisks/ Unfortunately not all save disk formats are supported by the ADF format yet, so it may be that you will not have luck for a special game. Please go to the above site and report failing ADF save disk transfers, and please also help to increase the save disk collection. 2.3.4 Quitting emulation / Rebooting ------------------------------------ To quit the emulated Amiga (and also WinUAE) open the GUI by pressing F12, then go to the [Misc] tab and click the [Quit WinUAE] button. You may as well use the keyboard shortcut 'Alt-F4'. To reboot the emulated Amiga (whithout restarting WinUAE) open the GUI by pressing F12, go to the [Misc] tab and click [Reset Amiga], and then ok. This will reboot the Amiga with the same settings. When playing games you may use the [Reset Amiga] function to change from one game to another, by just changing the ADF in the Foppies tab before rebooting. This of course only works within games requiring the same settings. 2.3.5 Graphics problems ----------------------- It might happen that some games or demos show up graphic errors. If this happens it is always a good idea to go to the [Display] options within WinUAE's GUI and select [Detect 16-bit Pixel Format] before starting the emulator. If this does not help it might be that a specific graphics trick can not be emulated properly yet. 2.3.6 WinUAE seems slow ----------------------- Well, with a PII processor, WinUAE works very well. If you have a slower system, please change the sound settings to a lower quality and use a lower screen resolution (e.g.640x480 instead of 800x600. You can change these settings in the [Sound] and [Display] Menus. 2.3.7 Some programs don't work ------------------------------ Well, emulation can never be perfect. Many things still can not be emulated 100%. If you don't get a bootable ADF to run, try out different BTTR configs (with different kickstarts). If you don't get non-bootable programs to run, try out different versions of the complete Amiga-OS setup or disk sets. You get all important versions of Workbench and Kickstart images from http://www.cloanto.com/amiga/forever/ 3. FLOPPY DRIVE EMULATION ========================= No Amiga was ever produced without a built in 3.5" floppy disk drive. The standard was a DD disk drive, but later Amigas also came out with a HD drive. When Amiga came out, hard disks were very expensive and so most people ran the Amiga-OS and Amiga programs from floppy disks. Many Amiga programs have been released on bootable 3.5" floppy disks, and most of them can just be run by booting the Amiga with it. The only way to make a working copy of such a 'boot-only' floppy disk is to create a [disk image] of it, which contains the same data, arranged in the same way as it is on the original floppy disk. Such disk images are called [ADF images], and Amiga emulators can directly 'insert' them into their emulated floppy drives. Amiga disk images went pretty famous, caused by the limited lifetime of floppy disks, and also caused by the increasing quality of Amiga emulators. This chapter is going to introduce the most important disk image formats, together with some info about handling these on different platforms. You find a lot of disk images in Aminet and at other places in the web. Disk images are an unknown filetype to web servers, so make sure that you use the 'save link as' function of your browser when you download a disk image and do not just click the link (unless your browser knows the type) Otherwise you might have a damaged image/archive. 3.1 DMS ARCHIVES (*.dms) ------------------------ DMS - the 'Disk Masher System' is one of the first Amiga floppy disk imaging programs. It creates compressed archives, which could be written back to Amiga floppy disks again. Unfortunately, early versions of the DMS program were quite buggy, when the original coders 'ParCon Software' left the Amiga for good. An update was coded by some 3rd party people, which contained the 'ripped' compression algorithm of the original program, and so was an illegal piece of software. That's why DMS is considered an obsolete standard. There is a doc from 1996 about the DMS problematic at http://de.aminet.net/aminetbin/find?dms+sucks 3.1.1 Handling DMS archives on an Amiga --------------------------------------- - DMS: The common way on Amiga to unpack a DMS archive and write it back to a floppy disk is to use the original DMS executable. The last legal but quite buggy version of this Disk Archiver is availlable from http://de.aminet.net/aminetbin/find?dms111 To install it, just place the DMS executable in your C: directory. Insert a disk in df0: (needn't be formatted), open a shell and type: DMS WRITE yourfile.dms TO df0: Please do not use DMS to create new archives, use ADF format instead. - xDMS is a portable unpacker for DMS archives by Andre R. de la Rocha, which converts a DMS archive to an ADF (see ADF description below) Amiga/PC/Linux/PPC executables of xDMS and the source code are availlable from http://de.aminet.net/aminetbin/find?xdms To install it, just place the DMS executable in your C: directory. Open a shell and type the following to convert a DMS archive: XDMS u yourfile.dms This will create the file 'yourfile.adf'. 3.1.2 Handling DMS archives on a PC ----------------------------------- - xDMS: is a portable unpacker for DMS archives by Andre R. de la Rocha, which converts a DMS archive to an ADF (see ADF description below) Amiga/PC/Linux/PPC executables of xDMS and the source code are availlable from http://back2roots.emuunlim.com/Tools/Files/XDMS/ To install it, just place the DMS executable somewhere in your path. (For example in c:\windows). Open an MSDOS win and type the following to convert a DMS archive to an ADF: XDMS u yourfile.dms This will create the file 'yourfile.adf'. - WinUAE/xDMS: Once you have installed the xDMS executable within your path as described above, you may directly open DMS archives from within WinUAE's floppy configuration menu. WinUAE will then unpack the DMS archive 'on the fly' and will insert the result into the choosen drive. Note that any write access to such disks will be lost after removal, as WinUAE only handles a temporary ADF copy of the DMS image content. If you need to write to a disk you have to convert it to ADF format before, as written above. 3.2 ADF IMAGES (*.adf) ------------------------ ADF - 'Amiga Disk File' is an uncompressed sector per sector dump of an Amiga formatted floppy disk, preserving the Amiga (OFS/FFS) filesystem's specifics, such as long filenames, comments, all flags, the entire sector based disk layout including the boot block. (even NON-DOS disks with normal sector layout). For more 'in depth' info about the Amiga filesystem go to http://perso.club-internet.fr/lclevy/adflib/faq.html ADF disk images are mostly used as virtual floppy disks within Amiga emulators or as backup images of Amiga floppy disks. ADFs may be written back to Amiga floppy disks or may be used as an emulated floppy disk. The ADF format should be considered the successor of DMS, although it does not compress any information and still does not provide compatibility to all existing copy protection systems, but that will surely evolve... Compression should be done with an external utility, the most famous methods today are gzipped (GNU Zip compressed) ADF images containing one disk (see chapter 3.3), and zipped (PKZip/InfoZip compressed) archives containing one or more disks images (see chapter 3.4). 3.2.1 Handling ADF images on an Amiga ------------------------------------- - TransDisk: A shell utility which comes with any UAE distribution (check the Amiga files folder of the distribution and copy the content to your c: directory), It can both, create ADFs from Amiga disks, or write the content of an ADF image back to a disk. To write an ADF back to a disk, insert a disk in df0: (needn't be formatted), open a shell and type: transdisk -w yourfile.adf To create an ADF of a disk, insert it in df0: and type: transdisk >yourfile.adf Above examples work for DD (880K) disks in df0:, for a list of more parameters type 'transdisk ?' in a shell. 3.2.2 Handling ADF images on a PC --------------------------------- - ADF Opus: A Win32 program by Dan Sutherland which can open ADFs and show the content in an exlorer alike manner, offering many functions to create or modify ADFs. http://www.chromerhino.demon.co.uk/adfopus/ To use it just unpack the archive somewhere and double click ADFOpus.exe Everything else should be pretty intuitive. - WinUAE: Since ADF is the preferred format for realtime disk emulation, ALL Amiga emulators can directly mount them as emulated dfx: floppy disks. 3.3 ADZ IMAGES (*.adz *.adf.gz) ------------------------------- ADZ images are gzip compressed ADF images, (compressed by GNU zip). GZip is availlable for about any platform, check the gzip homepage at http://www.gzip.org 3.3.1 Handling ADZ images on an Amiga ------------------------------------- - gzip: Amiga ports of the gzip compression executables can be found on aminet at http://de.aminet.net/aminetbin/find?gzip+gnu To install gzip just place the executables in your c: directory To decompress a gzipped ADF image open a shell and type gzip -cd yourfile.adz >yourfile.adf To compress an ADF image with gzip type: gzip -c yourfile.adf >yourfile.adz 3.3.2 Handling ADZ images on a PC ---------------------------------- - GZip: The Win32 port of the gzip compression executables can be found at: http://back2roots.emuunlim.com/Tools/Files/GZip/ To install it, just place the DMS executable somewhere in your path. (For example in c:\windows). To decompress an ADZ image open an MSDOS win and type the following: gzip -cd yourfile.adz >yourfile.adf To compress an ADF image with gzip type: gzip -c yourfile.adf >yourfile.adz - WinZip: ADZ images may directly be decompressed using WinZip from http://www.winzip.com Note that WinZip does not handle all possible extensions ADZ images might have, so it may be necessary to rename an archive before you attempt to unpack it. (rename to '*.adf.gz' for example) - WinUAE/Gzip: Once you have installed the gzip executable within your path as described above, you may directly open ADZ archives from within WinUAE's floppy configuration menu. WinUAE will then unpack the ADZ archive 'on the fly' and will insert the result into the choosen drive. Note that any write access to such disks will be lost after removal, as WinUAE only handles a temporary ADF copy of the ADZ image content. If you need to write to a disk you have to convert it to ADF format before, as written above. 3.4 ZIP ARCHIVES (*.zip) ------------------------ Many sites today offer ZIP archives containing ADF images, since zips are easy to handle, are a known format to all webservers and browsers and may contain multiple ADFs using a single compression utility. There are various zip compression utilities availlable for many different platforms (pkzip, infozip, zip/unzip...) 3.4.1 Handling ZIP archives on an Amiga --------------------------------------- - Zip/Unzip: Amiga ports of these executables can be found on Aminet at http://de.aminet.net/aminetbin/find?util%2Farc+.zip http://de.aminet.net/aminetbin/find?unzip+5. Just place the executables in your c: directory and you are done. 3.4.2 Handling ZIP archives on a PC ----------------------------------- - WinZip: ZIP archives may directly be created and extracted using WinZip from http://www.winzip.com It comes with an installaltion shield and is properly integrated in Win32 after installation. To unpack a ZIP archive rightclick it from the explorer and choose the 'Extract zip to ***' function. All files in the archive will be extracted to a new folder with the archive's name. To create a ZIP archive rightclick a folder and choose 'Add to ***.zip', which will create an archive with the folder's name. For more info read the WinZip helpfile. - WinUAE: There is no direct support for zipped ADF images at all, you have to use WinZip to unpack the ADFs first. 4. HARD DRIVE EMULATION ======================= Amiga emulators offer harddisk emulation, allowing you to access one or more virtual harddisks from within Amiga-OS. Note that bootable harddisk support came with Amiga-OS 2.0 or higher, so make sure that you have the workbench disk images and the kickstart ROM image available. (For best look and feel we recommend Amiga OS 3.x). There are two possible ways to simulate a harddisk, a 'hard disk file' and a 'mounted directory'. Of course these may be mixed up with each others, and of course multiple ones may be used each. 4.1 Hard disk files (*.hdf) --------------------------- A hard disk file is a binary image of a single Amiga harddisk partition (say, it's the hard disk equivalent of an ADF), and so, supports (nearly) all functions of real Amiga filesystems, such as file comments and all flags. Hardfiles even support sector based access, so you may use "ReOrg" or other disk utilities on a hardfile. To create a hardfile go to the "Hard drives" tab in WinUAE's GUI and click on [Add Hardfile], and enter the amount of bytes you want to spend for it near the [Create] button. The value must be in bytes, so, if you want a 10MB hardfile you must enter 10485760 (remember, 10MBytes is 10*1024*1024 bytes). Once you have entered the size click [Create]. You will be prompted for a filename for the HDF file. Enter a filename and click [Save]. Now click [OK] and the HDF will appear in the list as DH0 if it was the first emulated harddisk. Hardfiles need to be formatted before you can use them, same as ADFs. To format a hardfile, save your current setting, insert a workbench disk in DF0 (preferable 3.x) and boot the Amiga emulator. Once the workbench appears you should see an icon called DH0 for example. Activate it by clicking it once, and call the "Format Disk" function from the Workbench's [Icon] menu. The formatting program will launch. Enter a name for this volume in the [Volume name] field, and, for most efficient usage of the hard file space activate the 'Fast File System' checkmark. Then click [Format]. A warning requester will appear telling you that all data will be lost, click [Format] there too. Once the formatting is finished, the hardfile is prepared to install the Amiga-OS. See chapter 4.4 about that. 4.2 Mounted directories ----------------------- A mounted directory is a 'faked' harddisk, which just mounts a directory from your host computer as a virtual Amiga disk. It's less compatible to the usual Amiga filesystem, but it's much faster. Most Amiga filesystem specifics don't work with mounted directories, no file comments and not all of the flags can be emulated (depends on the host system). Amiga-DOS installations works fine within a mounted dir, just a few programs are known to fail on it. A basic advantage of mounted directories is the fact, that it just requires the disk space each file on it needs. Also, such a harddisk 'scales', it will just be full if your computer's hard disk is full. To mount a directory go to the "Hard drives" tab in WinUAE's GUI and click on [Add Directory], enter for example "Workbench" as the volume name and select a path (e.g C:\WinUAE\Workbench), then click [OK], and the volume 'Workbench' should appear in the list. A mounted directory needn't be formatted, so save your settings and everything is prepared to install the Amiga-OS as described in chapter 4.4 4.3 Mounting all PC drives at once ---------------------------------- Additionally, there's a special kind of mounted directories, which allows to mount all PC drives at once. This function will add all drives of your PC as mounted directories. This works for all PC hard disk partitions, CD-ROM drives and floppy drives, and whatever local drive your PC can access by drive letters. To enable this function go to the "Hard drives" tab in WinUAE's GUI and activate the checkmark near 'Mount all PC drives on startup'. Note that all entries in the volume list are mounted first (if any), then all PC drives at once. Also note, that removable media drives only get mounted if a disk is in each drive. (i.e. insert a CD-ROM before you start WinUAE to get the CD-ROM drive mounted properly, same facts for the floppy drive). 4.4 Installing the Amiga-OS --------------------------- There are many versions of the Amiga-OS, as said before, and only later versions have full support for all features UAE can emulate. That's why we recommend to use Amiga-OS 3.x for harddisk based installations. The following is a short 'howto' about installing Amiga-OS 3.1, which is pretty much the same for version 3.0 too. Amiga-OS 3.1 is very compact and efficient, it just requires 5MB for a full installation. It comes with a harddisk installation disk, which installs the OS on the first emulated harddisk it finds (DH0). This disk should usually be labeled 'Workbench'. You may use a second disk for data and working programs which is usually labeled 'Work'. Both can be a hard- file or a mounted directory. If you use a hardfile for the Workbench disk give it a size of 10MB. For mounting instruction see section 4.1 and 4.2. Once you have finished all mountings you are ready to install the OS. Make sure that you use Kick 3.1 and that the first entry in the Volumes list of WinUAE's hard drive menu is the disk you want to install the OS to. Also make sure that it is formatted in case that it's a hardfile. Amiga-OS 3.1 comes on 6 disks. Insert the 'Install' disk in df0: and boot the emulated Amiga. When the workbench screen opens you should see three icons: 'Ram Disk', 'Workbench' (or however you called your harddisk) and 'Install 3.1'. Double click the 'Install 3.1' disk icon, then double click the 'Install' folder you find in it. You will be presented a list of possible languages to install. Now double click your language and the automatic installation will begin. The installer window will open telling you what this is, click 'Proceed'. Next you will be asked wheter you want to install or update, click at 'Install Release 3.1'. You will then be asked about your level of Amiga experience, leave 'Novice' activated and press 'Proceed with install'. Next you will be asked which languages you want to install. For normal usage it is enough to install just _your_ language. Don't change anything and click 'Proceed'. Now you will be asked for your printer driver. Leave everything unchecked and click 'Proceed'. Next you will be asked for your kind of keyboard. Activate the checkmark which matches your keyboard language and click 'Proceed'. Now the question part is over and the installer will begin to copy all files to the harddisk. You will be prompted for the other five disks, whenever that happens press F12, go to the floppies tab and insert the requested disk there, then click [OK]. The emulator will usually notice the disk change within a few seconds and the installer will automatically proceed. Whenever this is not true click 'Proceed' manually after the changed disk appears on the Workbench screen. After all files have been copied the installer will notify you about the successful installation, and will tell you that you have to reboot the Amiga after you have removed the installer disk. Press F12 then, go to the floppies tab and remove ALL disks. Then press [ok], and then press 'Proceed' in the installer's window, and the Amiga will reboot. Congradulation, you have now installed Amiga-OS 3.1. Once the Amiga has finished booting you should see (at least) two icons, 'Ram Disk' and 'Workbench' (your Amiga-OS installation disk). 5. LEGAL STUFF ============== 5.1 Copyright ------------- This guide and the config files are (c) 2000 by: Ralf Steines (Hippie2000/BTTR) & Juergen Beck (Bobic/BTTR), all rights reserved. 5.2 Distribution ---------------- This guide is intended for personal usage. Any form of distribution, is only permitted with prior, written permission by the authors. Do not upload this guide to your homepages, neither in readable form, nor in archived form. Nonexclusively licensed to Epic Marketing ltd. and Darkage Software for use with 'Amiga Classix 2'. 5.3 Disclaimer -------------- All information provided here is meant "AS IS". No guarantee could be given that it is free of mistakes, or that it works on your machine. The authors can not be held responsible for any damage which may occur as a result of using this information, so use all at your one risk. 5.4 Credits ----------- - Andreas Eibach for his 'in depth' compatibility tests and for contributing his 'A500' configuration file, now called OCS12/13. - All other people who have helped and who will be named in further versions of this guide. 5.5 Trademarks -------------- Amiga, Workbench and Kickstart are registered trademarks of Amiga International Inc. (www.amiga.com). All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.