FAQ about Unix Amiga Emulator
I have been using UAE since it first days. It is a great work (without which
we wouldn't have Palm emulator eater), and I often
received questions about it. Here are most frequent ones:
- How to use .adf files on Unix/Win etc...
- I need complete Workbench for UAE and/or kickstart.
- What will be performance comparing to Amiga?
- Can I use Amiga diskettes to play games?
- What do I need to run UAE?
- How to use .adf files on my Amiga?
- How to make .adf files on Amiga for UAE?
- How can I unpack .lzx, .lha or .dms on Unix?
- How can I create .lzx files on Unix?
- What are .gz files?
- I need more info about Amiga file formats
This question was different in last version of FAQ, but since
ADFlib is great product, take a look at
http://perso.club-internet.fr/lclevy/adflib/home.html
and download library and unadf. unadf use the same command line syntax as
unzip and you can use it to extract files from uncompressed .adf images.
From: Gary Peake
To: postmaster@foi.hr
Cc: abuse@foi.hr
Subject: Pirated copyright materials!
Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2000 14:59:45 -0500
Keywords: Amiga Inc.
Organization: http://www.amiga.com
X-Mailer: Forte Agent 1.8/32.548
The below site has pirated material that is under our copyright and belongs
to us. Please have this user remove all materials copyright Amiga Inc.
immediately!
http://www.foi.hr/~dpavlin/amiga/stuff/
Sincerely,
--
Gary Peake
Director - Support
Amiga Inc.
Unless otherwise stated, my posts represent my
personal opinions and not those of my employer.
Slow. At best like A500 ! That isn't actually true anymore with
Pentium processors running and 400 MHz and more, but bear in mind
that Amiga had 8 MHz processor (7.14 in fact!).
No. Just to be clear: NO. You need to transfer
disks to disk image files (which are called ADF files) on your Amiga (because
PC/Mac/Unix can't read Amiga disks, let's say it again: PC
or Mac or Unix CAN'T READ AMIGA DISKS) and then transfer it (using
720 Kb MS-DOS formatted disks or serial cable for example) to PC (or Mac
or...).
If that wasn't clear enough here is explanation from Dr. Peter Kittel
(taken from Official UAE
FAQ):
The Amiga as well as the PC use MFM coding, so up to this level
they are equal. But then the PC writes separate sectors on a track, where
each sector is separated by a defined gap and some sync patterns from the
previous one. These sector gaps are not used in the Amiga format. Here
all sectors are written as one "long track" directly following each other,
and thus also more sectors fit on one track.
A second issue is that the Amiga format does not use the index
hole in the floppy to sync the start of a track to a certain position on
the disk. Amiga tracks start at the very point where the drive head is
at that moment.
Normal PC floppy controller chips choke on at least one of these
issues, they simply cannot read such tracks. Often they are capable of
reading sectors longer than the usual 512 bytes (as also used on the
Amiga), but still not full tracks. There are some few controller chips
which have the potential to also read Amiga format. The Draco seems to
use one of them, and also the one used in the PIOS ONE is maybe able to
work in this format (has yet to be tested), but the normal PC hardware
is unable to do it.
So, having said that, let's get to better news: there is
controller like that for PC! It's called
Catweasel Advanced Floppy Controller, so if you want to spend some
money, go there!
Latest version of UAE available (have in mind that some versions are
available only for Unix - ports for DOS and/or Mac can be late), kickstart
rom image (optional in some cases) and image of disk to use under UAE.
Exact command line switches can be found in README files which comes
with UAE.
Well, simplest way is to use dd utility
provided here like this:
dd -c1760 -wdf0: file.adf
To write
file.adf on
df0: floppy.
You have to do this
on Amiga not on PC or Unix workstation!
dd -c1760 -rdf0: file.adf
To produce
file.adf from
df0: floppy.
Well, for .lha there is a full version available for almost all
Unices. For .lzx and .dms there is a unpacker on Aminet which you can
also find here.
Sorry, I really don't know of any compressor that supports .lzx on Unix.
The next best thing is to use .lha which is supported under Unix and
Amiga.
It's gzip compressed file. On Unix
try man gzip to get more info, for Amiga try to search Aminet for
gzip (i recommend
gzip124x2.lha, read about it more
here).
Well, that's it for now. Pffuf...