Classicamiga Forum Retro Edition
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Thread: EasyADF PCMCIA?
Stephen Coates 11:21 2nd January 2008
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.
[Reply]
Toddney 12:19 2nd January 2008
Is there anything like this for Kickstart 3.1?

http://classicwb.abime.net/classicweb/gaae.htm

This seemed very user-friendly, so I might just get the 37.350 rom instead (much cheaper)
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Graham Humphrey 15:34 2nd January 2008
Yes - check out the main ClassicWB page and you'll find the other packs for Workbench 3.x.

There's also a dedicated sub-forum for it on EAB too.
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Harrison 16:58 2nd January 2008
Originally Posted by Toddney:
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.
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Toddney 17:30 2nd January 2008
Thanks for all the tips. However, my ebay seller wouldn't return the A600, and seeing as I spent so much already on it, I'm keeping it.

Now I've bought an A600 HD, 2.05 rev 37.350 ROM and 1mb 602 expansion. Will be getting the cables soon enough also. So I will eventually go with the original idea that you suggested, and installing that special 2.1 version.
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Toddney 14:40 3rd January 2008
Am I right in thinking that the HD I have bought could just be connected to my pc with the normal IDE cable/power cable that a PC motherboard would use?

I understand the Amiga uses a 44pin version and transfers power at the same time.
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Buleste 14:45 3rd January 2008
The amiga uses 2.5" IDE hard drives as standard and PC's use 3.5" IDE as standard. 2.5" is 44 pin and no power connector and 3.5 is 40 pin and a power connector. You can connect your hard drive to the PC with a different connector. There are many ways of doing this each have their own pros and cons.
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Toddney 15:04 3rd January 2008
Ah ok so what are my options?
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Harrison 15:35 3rd January 2008
The easiest two options are those I already mentioned.

The first is to use an external 2.5" HD caddy. Just pop the HD into the caddy and then connect it to the PC via USB. That is the simplist method and it works. And a caddy from ebay is only a few pounds at most.

The second is to use an external IDE to USB cable, such as the one here. Just connect the HD to the cable, then pug the cable into the PC and the drive will appear. This is what I've been using recently and it works perfectly.

The other alternative is to by a 40pin to 44pin IDE adaptor such as this so you can connect the drive directly to the IDE interface on your PC motherboard. However this requires you to open the PC and have it switched off while you install or remove the drive. Using either of the two USB methods above you don't need to do this and can connect and remove the drive at any time you like.
[Reply]
Toddney 10:31 12th January 2008
I can't get windows to recognise this drive. It has already been formatted and has workbench 3.x on it, would this be the reason why it can't detect it? Or something else?
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