This Workbench based ADF writer has been around since 2006, but I've never heard of it until recently. Prior to this GUI based option on the actual Amiga, I've been forced to use command line based programs or programs that bypass the Amiga in favor of using a PC. Well, this nerd is here for the Amiga, and I'd much rather use a program that takes advantage of that machine, like TSGui here. My written review for TSGui: This program was brought to my attention by Ms. Mad Lemon: - Introduction - Readme file - My old way of transferring ADFs to floppy - A GUI option/Opening the program - Finding and copying an ADF image - Progress bar - Writing to DF1: easily - Showing off copied game working - Copying a floppy disk to an ADF image - DMS files using TSGui - Partition info - Final thoughts Gaming Memories And Review Season 3 Playlist: Gaming Memories And Review - Ep. 3x13 - TSGui, Amiga.
In this guide I’ll take you through the process of customising the Workbench 3.1 operating system for the Commodore Amiga. The standard Workbench installation is very basic but there is a large selection of 3rd party software to enhance and modernise the experience. There are several popular pre-made packs for the Workbench OS (like ), but it can be very informative to go through the process from scratch. You’ll also get more opportunities to customise the Workbench installation and not be stuck with unmaintained ‘all in one’ packs that have not been updated in years.
Namely, copy the Amiga 1000 specific Kickstart 1.3 disk (ADF format) and Workbench 1.3 Disk (ADF format) to the Gotek USB stick. This means we need to assign the Kickstart 1.3 ADF on the Gotek using selector.adf to do that. It was notable for introducing new versions of and, and for some minor improvements in the custom chips, known as the (or.
![Amiga workbench 3.1 adf download Amiga workbench 3.1 adf download](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/e/e4/Amiga_Workbench_1_3_large.png/250px-Amiga_Workbench_1_3_large.png)
This guide was written for a 68020 CPU Amiga with 2MB of chip-RAM and 8MB of fast-RAM (specifically, I used ). At the end of the guide I’ve included some ideas on other software to use with faster Amiga hardware. I will assume the reader has some basic working knowledge of the Amiga to keep the total length of the guide down. If you’ve got no clue what you’re doing, it might be an idea to spend some time playing around with a virtual Amiga with. The is really useful too. To use this guide, you’ll need a set of Workbench 3.1 installation floppy disk images, relevant motherboard ROM image file for use with WinUAE and a way to connect your Amiga HDD to your PC (usually a USB memory card reader). Conventions At many points in this guide, temporary files will need to be created (e.g., when unpacking archives).
I will use Work:Temp/ as a temporary working location. If you want to use a different partition or drawer name, you will need to replace references to Work:Temp/ below accordingly. At the end of the guide, this temporary folder can be deleted.
Equally, my Workbench installation partition will be labelled System. Generally you should reboot the Amiga between each of the sections below, but I’ll point this out where it is essential.
Partitioning & Formatting The first step is to prepare your HDD, Compact Flash or SD card for use with an Amiga. I am using a 16GB SanDisk SD card, connected to my PC using a cheap USB memory card reader. Copy PC:MUI.KEY S:MUI.KEY Go to the unpacked MUI folder in the Temp directory and double-click the Install-MUI icon. When prompted, select the Intermediate installer mode. Ensure that the installation destination drive is set to System.
Click through the remaining prompts to complete the installation. Reboot the Amiga when the installer has finished. Inside Workbench, go to the System:MUI directory and double-click the MUI application icon to open the preferences dialog. Right-click on the top left of the screen and from the menu select Project and then Open. Select the Stuntzi.prefs file and click OK. Then click the Save button in the MUI preferences dialog.
HighGFX HighGFX provides two higher resolution screen mode drivers which are useful when using compatible displays. Download the HighGFX package from to your PC shared directory.
Unpack and install the files with the following shell commands. Copy Work:Temp/IconLib46.4/C/ System:C/ The included (and very useful) CopyIcon program is not copied over as it is already installed by the BetterWB update pack. Glow Icons Glow Icons provides more colourful system icons. Go to the System:Prefs/ folder and double-click the IconSet program. When prompted, select the Glow Icons option and reboot. The default drawer icon will now be changed to a GlowIcon drawer icon.
Start the System:Tools/IconEdit program. Right-click the top left corner of the screen and open the System:Prefs/Presets/Iconsets/Glowicons.info icon file. Then from the IconEdit menu, select the ‘set as default icon’ option and exit IconEdit. Now is a good time to also download additional icon sets to the Iconsets directory for later customisation.
Download the AB-GlowIconsSuite from to your PC shared directory. Lha x PC:AB-GlowIconsSuite.lha System:Prefs/Presets/IconSets/ Repeat this process for any other GlowIcon compatible icon sets you can find on the Internet. The CopyIcon utility installed by BetterWB can be used for changing icons with a simple drag-and-drop interface. WBStartup BetterWB includes a number of useful Workbench ‘commodity’ programs which provide small enhancements and modifications to the default Workbench environment, like ‘click to focus’ for windows. Go to System:Prefs and run the WBStartup program.
Enable the commodities that are shown in the screenshot below: Save the settings and reboot the Amiga. QBoot QBoot turns the usually black boot screen in to an informative loading progress screen. It is very useful when troubleshooting modifications to the system start-up screens and makes the boot process a bit more interesting. Download the QBoot package from to your PC shared directory. Unpack and install the QBoot software with the following commands. S:qboot '.'
Now customise the QBoot configuration file s:qboot.conf using redit. At a minimum, comment the PROMPT line so that QBoot exits from memory after the system has finished booting. Optionally, uncommenting the PROGBAR line at the end of the file gives a more verbose output as shown below: FBlit FBlit moves some OS functions out of chip-RAM and into fast-RAM, speeding up certain aspects of Workbench.
Download the FBlit package from to your shared PC directory. Unpack and install FBlit.
Lha x PC:MCP130.lha Work:Temp/ Run the installer program that is extracted to the Temp directory. Click through the defaults in the installation wizard until the preferences window appears. The default options are good, but feel free to enable/disable modules to your liking. Click Save and then reboot the Amiga.
Dopus Directory Opus is a file manager tool which is very popular for manipulating the Amiga filesystem. We will use the more popular (older) version 4.16 rather than version 5+. Download the Dopus package from to your PC shared directory. Unpack the software. Lha x PC:DOpus416JRbin.lha Work:Temp/ Run the installer in “Intermediate User” mode. Install to either System: or Work. The Dopus interface is highly configurable.
Many premade Dopus configuration files exist on the Web. If you’re stuck for ideas, you could unpack the ClassicWB pack and borrow the Dopus configuration from there. SysInfo SysInfo is quite dated but it’s still a popular system benchmarking tool. Download the SysInfo package from to your PC shared directory. Unpack the software directly to the desired installation root folder. Copy Work:Temp/Vim/vim60/Xxd.info C: Kickstart ROMs In the following section the seminal WHDLoad package will be installed. However, for that to work properly, various Commodore Amiga kickstart ROM images need to be present inside the System:Devs/Kickstarts/ directory.
As these are copyrighted files you will need to source these on your own. More information is available on. Remember to include the.RTB files also. WHDLoad WHDLoad allows retro Amiga games that were never shipped with HDD installer programs to be installed on the HDD and launched from inside Workbench.
If you want to do any gaming on the Amiga this is an essential tool. Download the latest “usr” package from the to your PC shared directory.
Unpack the software. Lha x PC:WHDLoadusr.lha Work:Temp/ Run the extracted installer, selecting Intermediate User mode when prompted.
Click through the wizard, all default answers are okay. At this point you should create a Games folder somewhere (or maybe you created a Games: partition earlier) and populate it with your WHDLoad games collection.
If you’ve not got any WHDLoad games at the moment, check out the. Use Dopus to unpack the ZIP archives. IGame iGame is a popular frontend to the WHDLoad system. It provides an easy way to browse all WHDLoad games installed on your Amiga. Download the iGame archive from to your PC shared directory. Also download the and support libraries.
Unpack the downloaded files as shown below. The iGame software does not have an installer so is just unpacked to Work. Lha x PC:iGame.lha Work: The user interface for iGame uses MUI, so the fonts etc., can be heavily customised using the configuration dialog within iGame. ToolManager ToolManager is an icon dock program similar to the AmiDock program that is included with AmigaOS 3.9. This section is derived from a by Marios Filos, so if anything is unclear, refer there. Download the and packages from Aminet to your shared PC folder.
Also download Marios’ ToolManager icon brush collection, and the “icondt” datatype package from. First, install the “icondt” file, which will allow ToolManager to use normal icon files in addition to its normal brush files. Lha x PC:DockBrushes.lha System:Prefs/Presets/ Run the ToolManager installer that was unpacked to Work:Temp/Toolmanager/. Reboot after the installation wizard has finished. After rebooting, ensure that ToolManager exists inside System:WBStartup.
Start the ToolManager configuration program from System:Prefs/ToolManager. Dock buttons for your favourite programs must now be created. Programs are defined on the “Exec” tab. Icons for the dock are defined on the “Image” tab.
On the “Docks” tab the programs and images defined on the previous tabs are combined to construct one or more icon docks. Now create your own custom icon dock (if you’re new to ToolManager there are more detailed instructions on Marios’ blog). Furia Specific Files If your real Amiga has a hardware accelerator card, now is a good time to copy over to the Amiga any turbo card support files, drivers or utilities. I am using the Furia card in the Amiga I wrote this guide for, so will make some Furia specific changes. Only follow this section if you also use the Furia 68020 card. Download the, and files to your PC shared directory. Unpack the downloaded files.
C:LoadModule NIL: L:cardres.ld.strip REVERSE What this does is patch the ROM’s card.resource driver with an update that makes it fast-RAM friendly. If there is already a LoadModule line in your s:startup-sequence, you need to add the argument to that line rather than create a second LoadModule call. Finishing Touches At this point the core of your customised Amiga Workbench installation is complete. It’s now up to you to put the finishing touches on the system, like changing the fonts, icons and wallpaper. Installing other applications like music players and graphics tools are largely personal preference so also left as an exercise to the reader. Tip: If you backup your Amiga SD/CF card (or HDD) to a HDF file with WinUAE, it can be written back to the SD/CF card using the shareware.
Below is a screenshot of my Amiga 600 Workbench installation, built with this guide: If you have a more powerful Amiga (68030+ CPU) there are some other useful GUI customisation tools which are work looking at –. I hope this guide was useful and you learned more about how the Amiga Workbench OS functions along the way.
Once I have my Indivision ECS Mk2 installed I’ll put some videos on YouTube of this machine in action. Did you like this article? Please consider this site. Page last updated: 17/09/18.