Questions tagged [amiga]
For questions related to the Commodore Amiga family of personal computers.
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Why does MP3 audio decoding overwhelm retro CPU's?
Many retrocomputers from the late 80s and early 90s had audio DAC hardware support. This includes the Amiga, Classic Macintosh, and PC's with SoundBlaster add-on cards. Despite the fact that the MP3 ...
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How can I recover the contents from an Amiga HDD using modern Linux?
I have two Amiga 1200's in pieces. One of them has a 52mb HDD in it and on it is my dissertation from 1995 and all my essays. I want to retrieve the dissertation because it's the only surviving copy. ...
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Attaching a CD-rom drive for Amiga 500
How can you attach a CD-ROM drive to an Amiga 500?
Will any external SCSI drive do?
Are drivers necessary and available?
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What is the largest RAM expansion for Amiga or Commodore? [closed]
What is the largest RAM expansion being manufactured today for Amiga and Commodore 8-bit?
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Amiga ed removes flags
Recently I noticed a strange behavior when editing startup-sequence with ed. Unless I call
protect startup-sequence rwed
before editing it, ed says unable to write the file. Saving the file ...
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21
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5
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Were the custom chips in the Amiga exploited for their hardware bugs like the ones in the C64 and Atari 8 bit computers were?
Here we are some decades on from the C64, and other 8 bit computers.
New ideas that resulted in some new graphics effect or mode seem to happen, though we may be near the end of all that.
Took a ...
CommunityBot
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14
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2
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What options were available for having an Amiga 1000 not be dependent on a KickStart disk?
I bought an Amiga 1000 second-hand many years ago for $50. In this deal I received a spare motherboard as the one installed in the chassis was upgraded; most notably, it had KickStart on ROM and thus ...
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How many Amiga 590 units were sold?
The A590 was an external hard disk for the Amiga 500, in 'sidecar' form factor, that could also hold an extra megabyte of RAM.
How many 590s were sold, throughout its life?
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pfs3 error when copying files
Config: WinUAE 4.2.1, CPU 68020, 24bit, FPU 68882, 8MB FastRam Z2, A1200, CF 4GB Transcend, BetterWB 43, Dopus 4,
When I try to copy folders from PC to CF Partition (2.4GB, pfs3) it goes alright, ...
CommunityBot
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Replacing the floppy drives in my Amiga 3000
My Amiga 3000 is starting to show its age, and recently one of the two internal floppy disk drives appears to have given up the ghost... I'd like to replace the drive but the A3000 case doesn't have ...
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What were the differences in floppy disk formats between Amiga and IBM/PC compatible computers?
The capacity in Amiga Old File System format (OFS, OS version 1.x) was 840KB, with the Fast File System ("FFS" (!)) introduced for OS 2.x onwards able to store 880KB. The PC format stored 720KB on the ...
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Create an Amiga hard disk image
I'm looking for Linux dd command equivalent for Amiga to make image of hard disk. TSGUI not work if disk have broken RDB. Do you know program which can make hard disk image on Amiga?
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Why was it not possible to cost-reduce the Amiga 500?
According to 'Commodore: The Final Years' (whole trilogy highly recommended, BTW), page 129, 'Jeff Porter realized it would not be possible to significantly cost reduce the Amiga 500 to get it into ...
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What does the H protection bit mean under classic AmigaOS?
The AmigaOS file protection bits allows for Read, Write, eXecute, Delete permissions on files, similarly to Unix (save for the Delete permission). Additional bits are Archive (reset when a file is ...
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How do specify drives to mount when Amiga 1200 starts up
I have an Amiga 1200 with an SD card and Classic WB installed. I have four drives DH0, DH1, DH2, DH3, when I start the machine with workbench it mounts all devices. If if start the machine using skip ...
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What is the "two-drive trick" that can read Amiga disks on a PC?
Standard belief is that the floppy disk controllers used on PCs are incapable of reading Amiga floppy disks, due to the PC disk controller expecting a very specific low-level format of disks, whilst ...
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Amiga Video Toaster support
What features of the Amiga chipset architecture and/or Amiga OS made it possible to design the Video Toaster for the Amiga?
Why weren't there similar (cost-effective) video products for the PC or Mac?...
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Can you split resolutions and scrolling (horizontally) on an Amiga?
Some time back I asked if it was possible to get more than 8 sprites on a single scanline with the Amiga using a copper list. It seems it is quite possible indeed!
Now I am wondering if it is ...
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4
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What graphics sytems used display lists?
As near as I can tell, there seems to have been roughly speaking two schools of thought when it comes to graphics hardware among early consoles, what I will call the Atari and Texas Instruments ...
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How advanced was the Amiga Walker prototype?
The Amiga Walker was a prototype Amiga computer that never made it to market. Wikipedia has some info including a photo of a motherboard.
How advanced was the prototype? Could it boot and run Amiga ...
CommunityBot
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How to integrate an 512kB EEPROM on a A3660 accelerator board at $00F00000?
I am currently experimenting with Chucky's re-engineered A3660 accelerator board for the Commodore Amiga (3000(T) and 4000(T)).
My ultimate goal is to add an additional 512kB EEPROM to the ...
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2
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Amiga Workbench copy command just outputs 'copy mode'
I'm trying to set up my system using UAE 4.2.1 64 bit and an excellent step by step guide provided by phraxoid:
https://devtty.io/2018/07/computing/how-to-setup-commodore-amiga-workbench-os/
The ...
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1
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How do I connect an IDE hard drive to an Amiga 4000 tower?
I would like to know how to connect a hard drive to the Amiga 4000 tower. I have an IDE cable from the top right m/b to the IDE CD-drive. I also have what looks like a SCSI cable from the CPU board.
...
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Did any Amiga 500 games or programs (apart from paint programs) use more than 32 colours?
While the Original Chip Set (OCS) and Enhanced Chip Set (ECS) Amiga computers had the 32 x 2 colour EHB (Extra Half-Brite) and 4096 colour HAM (Hold And Mofify) screen modes, where these ever used ...
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Why were 3D games on the Amiga not faster than on similar 16 bit systems like the Atari ST
It seems that 3D games, especially simulations like Falcon, were not faster (fps) on the Amiga than on the Atari ST - even a bit slower due to the CPU clock.
I was wondering why this is the case, ...
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Was the MC680x0's TAS instruction forbidden on Amiga systems only when operating in CHIP memory?
(Note: a previous version of this question asked about the CAS instruction, that was added by Motorola from the MC68020; the original one is the TAS instruction).
TAS is the acronym for Test And Set, ...
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1
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Why does my Amgia 3000 show no Fast RAM even though the ZIP sockets are populated?
I am trying to get an Amiga 3000T up and running, all seems good but there's no Fast RAM. All Zips ard populated. Is there any (easy) way to test the ZIPs? Also, could something like a bad cap kill ...
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Is the 3000T's case made by Commodore, or was it stock from elsewhere?
Is the 3000T's case made by Commodore, or was it stock from elsewhere? I need a side panel for one.
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Can I trigger the Amiga ROM debugger from the boot prompt?
Suppose I have an Amiga computer without any working boot disks. Is it possible to trigger the built-in ROM monitor (RomWack or SAD, see https://theamigamuseum.com/amiga-kickstart-workbench-os/guru-...
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Why did Commodore not upgrade OCS straightforwardly to 32-bit architecture?
This is somewhat of a speculative question...
Amiga's 1985 Original Chip Set is inherently a 16bit architecture (the data bus is 16bit, registers are 16bit, the blitter itself is 16 state machines ...
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Any Issues with running Workbench 1.3 on a Kickstart 1.2 Amiga 500?
I own a fairly early Amiga 500 with Kickstart 1.2 ROMs, Commodore Logo key and the OCS Agnus 8371. Is this system completely compatible with Workbench 1.3? Or does WB 1.3 require Kickstart 1.3 ROMs? ...
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Set keyboard layout in Amiga Workbench 3.1
I did a fresh install of the Cloanto amiga-os-310-install.adf disk to a hard drive, and then I wanted to change the keyboard layout to Swedish. I tried SYS:System/SetMap s but then I've learned that ...
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Does the Commodore CDTV-CR contain a 65C02 for some reason?
Browsing around the FS-UAE source code I discovered a 65(S)C02 emulation core, which appears to not be referenced anywhere outside of some CDTV-CR related source file.
Apparently, a CDTV is ...
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Digital PCB Plans for Retro Computers
I use software like Fritzing or Autodesk EAGLE to draw my Raspberry Pi or Arduino projects and was wondering if there is a source for PCB plans of for example an Amiga 500 in a format readable for ...
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What are the Ultra-Highres registers in ECS and AGA for?
The Amiga custom chip set, in its ECS and AGA versions, seems to contain some registers for what is called an "Ultra-HighRes/DUAL" mode:
DFF078 SPRHDAT W Ext. logic UHRES sprite pointer and ...
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Why was hardware diversification an asset for the IBM PC ecosystem?
The IBM PC was cloned very early on, and many third parties made hardware peripherals. This required users to run an OS, install drivers, manage IRQs and hardware bus addresses, etc. Why was this a ...
CommunityBot
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How to create a switchless multi-system 2 button Atari joystick?
All systems that use the Atari 9 pin joystick standard make use of the following pins in consistent ways, with each direction and the fire button being connected to the ground pin when pushed.
1 - up
...
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What is this side-scrolling fighting game for the Amiga?
I remember playing this game on an Amiga. I have no idea what it was called.
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What are all the patches that SetPatch applies to Kickstart?
SetPatch runs as the first command in the Startup-Sequence when Amiga boots up. It applies patches to the code in ROM to fix bugs and also enable features if necessary. For example, I seem to remember ...
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What are all the fixed addresses of AmigaOS?
I was reading Richard Downer's excellent response about how Amiga libraries work and one sentence in particular got my attention:
Yes, a pointer to exec.library is always at $4, and this is (in
...
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How to troubleshoot Amiga 600 power issue?
I have an A600 Rev 2D (schematic), which is dead as a doorknob. It was that way when I acquired it some years ago, and it's mostly been in storage since.
Between the 5V rail and GND I measure a low ...
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Commodore Amiga 600 Software Failure. "Error: 8000 0004 Task: 000026D0"
Software Failure on Commodore Amiga 600 when I insert a floppy in drive.
Software Failure. Press left mouse button to continue. Error: 8000 0004 Task: 000026D0
Independent from the floppy I ...
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How do Amiga 600 CPU accelerators work?
The Amiga 1200 has a trapdoor expansion for CPU accelerators. The Amiga 500 has a side expansion port and its CPU is socketed.
But Amiga 600's expansion port is only useful for memory expansion ...
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What should I do when some of the keys of my Amiga 600 have stopped working?
I opened up an Amiga 600 to install a hard drive, and after reconnecting the keyboard ribbon and powering the computer up, at least one column of keys no longer works. What did I do wrong and what ...
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Protected/virtual memory support in classic AmigaOS
It is a well-known fact that AmigaOS is a single address space, totally unprotected memory operating system. The original implementation ran on a Motorola 68000, that did not support virtual memory if ...
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Repairing/Lubing/Fixing Amiga 500 floppy drive
I have acquired an Amiga 500 that seems fully functional, but the floppy disk drive seems to have mechanical issues.
I could get it to read a few floppy disks until the last one wouldn't pop out when ...
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Transistor count of copper and blitter
According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOS_Technology_Agnus the Agnus, one of the three custom chips in the Amiga, that included the copper and blitter among other functions, contained a total of ...
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What is the benefit of increasing Amiga chip memory?
For example, an Amiga 500+ has 1MiB of chip memory, but it can be expanded to 2MiB. What would be the advantage?
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Are there any trapdoor slot video cards for a non-tower Amiga 1200?
Are there any trapdoor slot video cards for a non-tower Amiga 1200 ?
(That excludes Zorro expansion cards, PCI mediator cards and BlizzardPPC+BVision - as all of those require tower case,
also ...
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What are the Amiga 1200 timing fixes?
I have read that the Amiga 1200 may need certain "timing fixes" to be applied to the motherboard in order to use CPU accelerators. What are these timing fixes and why are they needed? Is there one ...
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