EasyADF PCMCIA?

[Harrison]

You can connect the Harddrive to a PC and set it up using the Amiga emulator WinUAE as this can directly access Amiga formatted HDs. This makes life very easy as you can copy the files over from the PC to the HD, set it up just how you would like, and then disconnect the drive and use it in the Amiga. Makes life much easier.

If it is a 2.5" HD then you can get a cheap IDE to USB cable from ebay. Tiago and myself both purchased these from Hong Kong for £0.99p plus postage.

For the A600 I would recommend you install Workbench 2.1 to the HD as it was a big update compared to 2.05, and it will work perfectly on the A600. If you want a copy of this version of Workbench give me a PM and I can sort out the ADFs for you. Workbench 2.1 was a file structure closer to Workbench 3 and even has CrossDOS built in to read PC formatted floppies.

WHDLoad is indeed for installing all of your Floppy disk based Amiga games to Harddisk. If you wish to set the Amiga up for this I highly recommend a different method of setting up the harddrive.

You can download a very nice preconfigured Workbench setup called classicWB available at http://classicwb.abime.net/ with a special A600 ECS Workbench 2.1 version called Classic Workbench Green Amiga Alien Edition available at http://classicwb.abime.net/classicweb/gaae.htm

ClassicWB sets the HD up with a great pre-configured Workbench environment, and even sets WHDLoad up read for you to use.

You do need 2MB of ram to rn ClassicWB and WHDLoad properly, so if you don't have 2MB in your A600 I highly recommend you track down the Commodore A601 1MB chip ram expansion for the A600. Should be quite cheap on ebay these days, or maybe Amikit has one.

Once you have that sorted, you don't actually need to manually install the WHDLoad supported games to the HD either. There are extensive WHDLoad game packs created by a guy called Killa Gorilla which you can find at http://www.guildserver.co.uk/kgwhd/

If you have classicWB installed, then you can just download these WHDLoad game packs and copy them to the Amiga HD and run them. That simple enough?

[Toddney]

Information overload, but I think I am starting to understand

I am a little confused about the hard drives though and what is compatible. You say IDE to USB, is that for connecting an external USB drive? Could I buy any IDE hard disk if I wanted?

Then with these WHDLoad games, some of them will work with kickstart 2.05, but won't some also be only for kickstart 1.3? I got a degrader floppy with my amiga 600, so would I still be able to use this even if I have this HD setup you recommend?

Finally, the RAM upgrade, the only one I can find is this one: A602 but I am not sure this is a) correct and b) where is this installed (looks too big to fit).

TIA

[Harrison]

From the image that expansion looks like it just connected into the trap door expansion under the A600. You could email Amikit to ask them before you order it as they are a great bunch of guys and will answer any questions you might have.

It looks like a useful expansion too as it has a built in clockport for using some A1200 expansions such as USB ports.

For WHDLoad, it contains it's own downgrader built in and will downgrade the system to make older games run on the A600 without you needing to use any floppy disk downgraders.

The IDE to USB connector I mentioned it for accessing a 2.5" harddrive on the PC. You could equally use an external harddrive caddie on the PC to do the same.

The idea is to buy a 2.5" harddrive that will fit inside the A600. Then connect this to the PC using either an external harddrive caddie or an IDE to USB cable. Then using the Amiga emulator WinUAE you can format and setup the harddrive easily on the PC. And then once completed you can remove the harddrive from the PC and put it into the Amiga to enjoy the HD you have then set up.

It sounds more complex than it really is. I can create a guide in the next week or so for you if you need it.

[Toddney]

Makes perfect sense now, I will do the buying after my next paycheck.

Yesterday was the best, my A600 arrived in an amazing condition. The keys and case are perfect white, and the degrader works so well. Just played some of my A500 floppies which I haven't played since it broke 15 years ago. Happy new year

[Harrison]

Congratulations on the new A600 purchase. Hope you have lots of fun with it. And just let me know if you need to know anything else.

And a happy new year to you too.

[Toddney]

Hm and now the honeymoon period is gone.

I've noticed that I have the 37.300 release, and so I wouldn't be able to upgrade to a big hard disk. I'm guessing therefore, I will have to upgrade to a 37.350 release or even go for the 3.1 kickstart.

So now my question is, can I use a memory card instead as a hard disk? I've heard this has been done before but am not quite sure if it would work with my crappy kickstart release.

If this isn't possible, I might have to buy a new Amiga 1200 as this would probably be better value for money, and would have the HD, RAM etc.

[Stephen Coates]

Getting a 3.1 ROM could be useful as it will allow you to run Workbench 3.1, which is better. For games, if they don't work with 3.1, you should be able to use the ReLoKick 1.3 or whatever to get a 1.3 ROM.

It is possible to use a memory card in place of an HD. You will just need to buy a suitably sized Compact Flash card and an Compact Flash -> IDE adaptor. I'm not sure how well they work, but a hard disk would probably be easier and more reliable. I think there is a topic about Compact flash cards on this forum which provides some info about it.

An A1200 is certainly good if you want to expand it, like with a 68030 or a PPC. I'm not sure what advantages it would have just for games, other than AGA which is only useful for AGA games.

Hope that helps.

[Harrison]

I've noticed that I have the 37.300 release, and so I wouldn't be able to upgrade to a big hard disk. I'm guessing therefore, I will have to upgrade to a 37.350 release or even go for the 3.1 kickstart.

So now my question is, can I use a memory card instead as a hard disk? I've heard this has been done before but am not quite sure if it would work with my crappy kickstart release.

If this isn't possible, I might have to buy a new Amiga 1200 as this would probably be better value for money, and would have the HD, RAM etc.

You can use a larger HD via a third party custom filesystem on the HD.

But you can get kickstart 3.1 for the A600 (possibly hard to find for the A600 though), and this will allow you to install Workbench 3.1 as well as OS3.5 or 3.9 and then take advantage of bigger storage. But because of the ECS chipset in the A600 you would still have limitations. No AGA support so no AGA games or applications would work. And limited ECS colour palette and mode support so some screen modes and some utilities and applications wouldn't work.

Therefore an upgrade to an A1200 would be the best choice overall, instead of spending money on the A600 as you could then get an accelerator card with some fast ram fitted, and install a compact flash card unit inside the A1200 instead of an HD. You could also get the A1200 on to the internet with a PCMCIA NIC card, and there are loads of other expansions you can do over time, including a full tower conversion eventually.