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[Matt_H]

Come on, guys, the poor man is frustrated. Yeah, his tone was a bit brusque, but it doesn't do any good to the community to scare away new users. We could have walked him through this, I think.

[klx300r]

@ Llamaman

sorry for your learning curve frustration but we've all been there before at one point. There's been some good advice for you in this thread and I hope you tackle the issues one step at a time. Funny as I remember having the same, if not worse, frustarting time with Windows 3.1 on my first PC after coming from my WB environment! arghh where's my Ram Disk

Originally Posted by tone007

Go play with your ST, lamer!

c'mon tone let's not start the Amiga vs Atari wars again

oops should have read tyhe whole thread beofre posting, guess we're too late. Ah well at least the 1200 goes to an Amiga user who will appreciate it.

Borut wrote:
Look at his other posts, he already sold his setup.

[itix]

Originally Posted by commodorejohn

I quite disagree; the Amiga is easily the simplest computer of its era to get up and running, and hardly any more trouble than modern OSes to install. The only real issues I had were getting large files onto the system (which I could've solved by springing for a CF->PCMCIA adapter, and eventually did) and getting networking setup (which was mostly trouble because I breezed through the settings and missed some important stuff.)

Workbench 3.0/3.1 has no TCP/IP stack, browser, FTP client or anything that even remotely supports networking.

Workbench 3.9 added AWeb and TCP/IP stack but you need a CD-ROM drive to install it. Standard Amiga 1200 case has no room nor connectors for the drive.

To use PCMCIA network card you must download CNET driver from Aminet which you must somehow move to your Amiga. Luckily Amiga can read PC formatted disks but you are limited to 720kB DD disks. Not every user know how to use HD disk as DD or have friends with an old PC.

It is tricky. The hardware is so incompatible with current standards. Hardcore Amigans have Catweasels, parnets, USB extensions and what not... but beginners are struggling with this stuff.

[djos]

But learning all this is half the fun ... I was a total Amiga n00b 2 months ago but now im almost a competent user thanks to lots of experimentation and research.

[som99]

Originally Posted by itix

Workbench 3.0/3.1 has no TCP/IP stack, browser, FTP client or anything that even remotely supports networking.

Workbench 3.9 added AWeb and TCP/IP stack but you need a CD-ROM drive to install it. Standard Amiga 1200 case has no room nor connectors for the drive.

To use PCMCIA network card you must download CNET driver from Aminet which you must somehow move to your Amiga. Luckily Amiga can read PC formatted disks but you are limited to 720kB DD disks. Not every user know how to use HD disk as DD or have friends with an old PC.

It is tricky. The hardware is so incompatible with current standards. Hardcore Amigans have Catweasels, parnets, USB extensions and what not... but beginners are struggling with this stuff.

Seems that people forget that getting files to your amiga to get started is easier then you think, lets say you got an A1200 with 2,5" HDD and no means to use the drive on your windows/linux machine or the know how to do it and you do not have an CF->PCMCIA adapter and your A1200 is stock, how do you do?

Easy, null-modem serial cable. Easy as pie and have been used for ages, build or buy a cable for scraps, plug in to a PC then your Amiga, and nowdays it's as easy as download and install the free version of Amiga explorer. Bam easy to use and you can even pick any ADF you got on your PC drag/drop and write to disk on Amiga (provided it got enough memory but that is no issue with the 1200 with DD floppies).

I have used a null-modem cable to copy over files even to my old Amiga 500 (with 512KB trapdoor expansion), that was how I made new WB disks when problem arised and I had no HDD on the Amiga.

This is a easy way people tend to forget and requires just a cheep cable and it's not even hard to build yourself and there is no problem to find the pinouts to make one.
Sure not the fastest way but it works. And if I do not remember wrong it's quite well explained on Amigaforever?

[spirantho]

The problem he had was that he jumped in right at the deep end without knowing what he was doing. From the start, he was faffing around with transfering HDF files and ADF files without even knowing what those files were. His big mistake was that he was expecting somehow WinUAE on a modern PC and an Amiga 1200 from 1992 to work identically, and integrate seamlessly.

If he'd started from the beginning with an A1200HD and some Workbench 3.1 disks, he'd probably have enjoyed the A1200 like the rest of us had...

[itix]

Originally Posted by som99

Easy, null-modem serial cable. Easy as pie and have been used for ages, build or buy a cable for scraps, plug in to a PC then your Amiga, and nowdays it's as easy as download and install the free version of Amiga explorer.

How do you get Amiga Explorer to your Amiga? And of course serial and parallel ports have been obsolete around 5 years now. Luckily there are USB serial adapters, though.

This is a easy way people tend to forget and requires just a cheep cable and it's not even hard to build yourself and there is no problem to find the pinouts to make one.
Sure not the fastest way but it works. And if I do not remember wrong it's quite well explained on Amigaforever?

And again you have to buy Amiga Forever from a distant online shop... it is tricky if you have to order various pieces to get your Amiga to usable state.

Ill never write MOS instead of MorphOS since MOS for me is Acorn MOS.

I (almost) never write MOS either

[gertsy]

Back to the ZX81. I Hope the program works.......

[persia]

Modern operating systems hide all the complexity from you, doing it all for you. Amiga OS does very little for you forcing you to learn and understand concepts that most take for granted. That's the fun, that's the challenge. If you just want to buy a computer and have it just work, stick with Macs. If you want to dig deep and understand the concepts and be willing to fail a few times in order to succeed the welcome to AmigaOS.

I am always surprised when these bright young kids come into my office and they don't have a clue why things work the way they do.

Originally Posted by djos

But learning all this is half the fun ... I was a total Amiga n00b 2 months ago but now im almost a competent user thanks to lots of experimentation and research.

[som99]

Originally Posted by itix

How do you get Amiga Explorer to your Amiga?

Worked like a charm last time i tried, here is a quote from AF about it:

"Once installed on the Windows side, Amiga Explorer can self-install to the Amiga over the serial cable without requiring any additional software, but the Amiga must be able to boot first (e.g. with a Workbench disk, at least version 1.2)"

Originally Posted by itix

And of course serial and parallel ports have been obsolete around 5 years now. Luckily there are USB serial adapters, though.

I still have parallel ports on plenty of my computers, beside my most recent builds :O
If you don't have you might know someone that has a PC with one, or you can head to your nearest electronics recycle facility and pick up an pentium 2, pentium 3 or even a pentium 4 socket 478 non HT machine since people toss em :O (the socket 478 P4s I understand since P3 kicks it's ass )

Originally Posted by itix

And again you have to buy Amiga Forever from a distant online shop... it is tricky if you have to order various pieces to get your Amiga to usable state.

But there is a free version of Amiga Explorer at http://www.amigaforever.com/ae/ for both x86 and x86-64 Windows.

Originally Posted by itix

I (almost) never write MOS either

Thanks, that I like

[lsmart]

Originally Posted by Matt_H

Come on, guys, the poor man is frustrated.

I think he is trolling. If not, I highly recommend him reading a manual. Any manual for that matter. Especially those that say "Copyright 1986 - 1992 Commodore Business Machines".

[AAACHIPSET]

install workbench 3.5 ..only version upgrade i use 3.1 to 3.5 ..new icons is part of it
then install directory opus ..****s all over most directory stuff windows has ..then install whdownload an the games u like ..forget magic workbench (ill get hate mail for that ) its pretty but new icons is better ..
my machine is a1200 030/50 fpu/mmu ..2 meg chip 90 something meg fast ..multiple 4gig drives ext cdwriter ..never gave me a problem with any whdownload games for retro play...with my indidvision the resolution on a vga monitor is great ..ive invested a bit time an cash to make it how i want it ...my pc is no slouch but its not nearly as much fun ...the amiga is not a pc ....its better ..