Posted by: AmigaX | March 14, 2010

IDE2SATA adapter working in Amiga

Yes, now I have working a 750Gb disk in my Amiga!

I fixed the problem by doing these things:
- The disk does not work as a master but as a slave.
- You need to install IDE-Fix.



I installed the disk instead of CD because I must boot the amiga from the old disk to start idefix and mount the second disk.



Pic: AmigaX  now with 750Gb HD. 

I found a new problem. The SATA partitions were read-only.
I solved the problem by doing the following things:

1. Downloading the SFS
2. Installing the SFS in the hard disk using HDTOOLBOX after copying smartfilesystem in l:
3. Adding mounter u=1 >nil: in my user-startup

Now I can write data in the disks!

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Posted by: AmigaX | March 14, 2010

Commodore didn’t kill the Amiga, the robot did it! ;)


Yeah, the irobot hunt my keyboard.
Nothing serious, still alive…   ;-)

I love this machine as much as the Amiga.

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Posted by: AmigaX | March 13, 2010

Tutorial: Telser.device

After 6 weeks testing hardware and software, I have a stable system for run the BBS.

The Bulletin Board Systems were connected modems through the serial port.
There were cards with multiple serial ports like the Commodore A2232

Modems are now extinct animals … a shame, I loved their sound!
Today everyone are connected by routers and dsl lines.

How can we integrate our old bbs software with tcp/ip?
Very easy, thanks to telser.device

If you want to use it, you will need AmiTcp/IP. I installed EasyNet from AmigaKit.

Once connected, we can download Telser and the key from Aminet.



The installer asks for AmiTCP, AS225, I-NET or Multilink.


The program was shareware but now it’s free, you can download the key from Aminet.
The key must be in s:


You need a comm software. I love Ncomm. You can get it from Aminet, now its free.
Once installed, you should change the serial.device by telser.device

Restart Ncomm and type:  atdt bbs.amiexpress.co.uk  (for example) and press enter



This is the screen where Ncomm store the “bookmarks”



Downloading a file using Z-Modem.library. In this case I got 5335 cps! ;P

Telser.device works with AmiExpress and any other communications software.

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Posted by: AmigaX | March 12, 2010

Indivision AGA – scroll problems


I have a new beautiful a4000 cost reduced.
This is the Amiga where I will test things before uploading to the BBS.

It’s the first time I have an Amiga with flicker fixer.

It comes with an Indivision AGA.

Everyone is happy with the Indivision, it’s a very good product but you must know a very important thing about it.
My new amiga is connected to a LCD TV (with a Scart cable) and now I’m also using a LG Flatron LCD monitor.
I can compare the image between the screens.

The first thing I did was run a demo. The typical Amiga demo with smooth horizontal text scroll.
What a disappointment!
The scroll on the  LG monitor was ugly (pc seemed).  In the LCD TV the scroll worked smooth and perfect.

I solved the problem downloading the configuration program from the Individual Computer’s site.

With this tool you can configure the screen timing to lower the Vsync rate.
Setting Vsync rate to 49.9Hz, the scroll is not perfect but looks very well.  It also depends on the monitor (response time).

Beware, not all monitors works with 50hz.
I tryed these three:
Dell 17″ – lower vsync: 55hz
Dell 15″ – Lower vsync: 58hz
LG Flatron -  Lower vsync: 48hz

Buy an Indivision, it’s a very cool product. If you love demos and games, buy  a 50hz compatible monitor for your indi.

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Posted by: AmigaX | March 7, 2010

MiniMig with AGA

Very good news. We have a new Amiga AGA compatible motherboard based in fpgas.
I’ll buy one.
More info in:
- Amiga.org
- http://www.fpgaarcade.com/

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Posted by: AmigaX | March 7, 2010

SATA to IDE adapter for Amiga

I’m testing a SATA to IDE adapter without brand.
These are the specs:
- SATA II 3Gbps Mini adapter board (size 75mx26mm)
- Supports any type of SATA device
- Convert SATA Drive like a standard IDE/Atapi Drive
- 48 bits LBA can Break Capacity-limit to support HDD larger than 137Gb
- Compliant with Serial ATA2.6
- Support IDE Master, Slave an Cable select modes
- Tag Command Queuing
- SATA Hot-Plug
- SATA power save modes
- ATA/Atapi pio mode data transfer
- ATA/ATAPI UDMA data transfer rate of 150,100,66, 44, 33, 25, 16.7 Mb/s
- ATA/ATAPI-7 streaming feature set
- 100% OS-transparent hardware bridge converter to support PC, MAC and Linux, no driver required

I checked the converter with a 100gb disk and an A4000.
HDToolBox detects the disk, but after create partitions I can’t save the changes.

I tried with differents disks with the same results.
For now I can’t use the SATA to IDE  converter with the Amiga. ;(

Now it is working: read the story here

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Posted by: AmigaX | March 2, 2010

Reconverting an Amiga keyboard


I have a german keyboard in my A4000, I don’t like it.  I’m going to replace some keys to get an english keyboard.

Materials needed:

1. German keyboard  ;)
2. English keyboard in poor condition
3. Hydrogen peroxide
4. Screwdrivers
5. Transparent container
6. Patience ;)

Previous steps:

I had an old A1200 keyboard very yellowed. I took and put the keys in a transparent bowl with Hydrogen peroxide (from the bathroom).
I put the bowl in a sunny place.

After three days, the keys were white.
I changed these keys:

First step: Disassemble the A4000 keyboard.


Here you can see the ugly keyboard… ;P

Important note: some keyboards has more keys than others.

Second step: Remove the keys


American Keyboard vs German Keyboard.
INCOMPATIBLE MEMBRANE (less keys in the american).

Third step: Replace the keys

German Y vs standard Y…


The end, now I have a nice and white English keyboard.

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Posted by: AmigaX | February 27, 2010

RGB to VGA adapter

We are testing a RGB to VGA adapter from AmigaKit.
It’s not a Flicker Fixer. It’s only an adapter with which you can connect an VGA monitor to your Amiga directly.

How it works?

You must copy the euro72 icon from storage/monitors to devs/monitors, then you must go to prefs/screenmode and select “Euro: 72hz productivity”.

This adapter is valid only for workbench and programs.  For games we need a flicker fixer.

We have tested the adapter in four A4000 and two A1200.

The A4000 does not work with the VGA Adapter. The power led becomes intermittent when we turn on the computer with the adapter.
We don’t know if the problem occurs in all Amiga 4000.

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Posted by: AmigaX | February 26, 2010

S3Trio working with Mediator

Now I have my own Mediator 4000di.

The reason I bought this card and not a X-Surf , is because I wanted a graphics card to work in 640×480 without flicker. (I have an rgb to vga adapter in my A1200, but it don’t works with my A4000).

I had problems with Kickstart 3.0 and Mediator, but it works well with Kickstart 3.1

I have an old Realtek 8029 card and two s3 based cards.

Everybody uses Voodoo3 cards with Mediator because 3D acceleration. S3 cards works very well, but you must do these things:

1. Download and install Picasso96 v2.1 (I found it in “the zone” : eab.abime.net)
2. Download an install the s3Trio64 driver from Elbox
3. Restart the Amiga and open Picasso96Mode in the prefs folder.
4. Go to the menu and open the file “picasso96settings.trio”:

5. Here you can test and configure the screen modes. Pressing the “test” button, you should see an image in your vga monitor.
6. Now  go to prefs and open “PVS”. Be sure “Soft Sprite” is activated and save the prefs.
7. Open the screen mode program in prefs and select a trio64 mode.

Note:  Some modes may not operate in your monitor because incompatible frequency.

Now we have the system working in 640×480 true colour without flicker. Ready for a very big SATA disk.  ;)

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Posted by: AmigaX | February 21, 2010

USB ethernet speed test – AmigaOS 4.0 Classic

I haven’t AmigaOs 4, but a reader sent me this interesting test.

Hardware used:
- Amiga 4000
- CyberStorm PPC 200Mhz / 128Mb
- Deneb USB
- D-Link DUB-E100 USB NIC

Software used:
- AmigaOs 4.0 Classic
- Amiftp
- Classicwb.iso (104Mb) – for transfers

Download test:


It takes less than 4 minutes to download 100Mb (aprox. 450 kb/s). Faster than with OS3.9 in a standard A4000 (300kb/s).

Upload test:

It takes 5:20 minutes to  upload 100Mb (aprox. 300Kb/s). FASTER than with Os3.9 in a standard A4000 (60Kb/s).
Appears that Deneb + USB NIC card are a very good solution for OS4 classic.

Thank you for the test mr.mig !

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