frank@zen.co.uk (Frank Wales) (01/20/89)
This question must have been answered at some point, but I'm a new
kid on this block, so I thought I'd ask anyway.
I've just taken delivery of a basic 2000, and I'll have a capacious but
empty hard disk RealSoonNow. I've been saving stuff from
comp.{sources|binaries}.amiga for the past couple of months in
anticipation, and now the time has come to get this lot onto my
beastie. The question is -- what's the best method?
The following possible options occur to me, listed in order of
decreasing preference:
1) write AmigaDOS disks here at the office and take those home
for loading -- we only have HP 9000s and PCs here capable
of writing 3.5" disks, but I'm prepared to write a program
to write AmigaDOS disks if one doesn't exist and it seems
feasible;
2) write 3.5" DomesDos disks at the office and read them using
some Amiga/PC utility at home -- this seems the most plausible;
3) use UUPC or some other comms software to talk to our office
systems for downloading -- this involves either 'phone bills
or moving the 2000, neither of which I fancy doing often;
4) actually spend money on some additional hardware, such as
an external 5.25" drive, and use that to read PC-written disks.
Ideally, it should work both ways (otherwise, how can I post my gems? :-)).
Note that I don't have a Bridgeboard, nor do I have any intention of
getting one, for what I hope are obvious reasons. Note also that
for the purposes of getting bootstrapped, I can get the use of a
colleague's Bridgeboard, but I'd rather not have to pester him every
time I want to bring stuff back and forth.
So; how do *you* get stuff onto your Amiga?
--
Frank Wales, Systems Manager, [frank@zen.co.uk<->mcvax!zen.co.uk!frank]
Zengrange Ltd., Greenfield Rd., Leeds, ENGLAND, LS9 8DB. (+44) 532 489048 x217 ericb@athertn.Atherton.COM (Eric Black) (01/23/89)
In article <1487@zen.UUCP> frank@zen.co.uk (Frank Wales) writes: >I've just taken delivery of a basic 2000, and I'll have a capacious but >empty hard disk RealSoonNow. I've been saving stuff from >comp.{sources|binaries}.amiga for the past couple of months in >anticipation, and now the time has come to get this lot onto my >beastie. The question is -- what's the best method? I have three methods I use. 1) I was able to take advantage of C/A's 100->2000 upgrade offer a year ago, with buy-back of my A1000 for $50; for a total of $1050 I ended up with both an A1000 and a B2000 (I know, you couldn't in Britain, but maybe you can buy a 1000 cheap; even if not, other people may have access to multiple machines). With another monitor, I have the 1000 in my office and the 2000 at home. I use Dave Wecker's VT100 2.8 at 19.2K baud, and can transfer files from the UNIX or VMS systems pretty fast to floppy, thence "SneakerNet" (floppy in shirt pocket) to home. Works great for taking large text files home to edit (code, documentation) and bring them back, and also works well for USENET offerings. This is the method I use if I think ahead. 2) I dial in to work and use the VT100 emulator (again, I use VT100 2.8 right now) and download/upload using kermit. My home is a long-distance call from work (quite a drive every day), so I prefer to think ahead and use SneakerNet when I can. But since I call in to the machines at work pretty much every day anyway for short calls to check for emergency mail and such, this works quite well for small files or unanticipated needs. I've played a bit with Matt Dillon's DNET, which provides a reliable communications layer, with a simple terminal emulator and a file transfer utility built on top, but you may or may not have problems getting that running on your HP machines, and forget it on a non-UNIX machine (at least right now). 3) I just recently (4 weeks?) got UUPC running on my Amiga. I got the code from Dan Schein (aka "Sneakers Computing"), and have my UNIX machine at work set up to communicate with my home machine. This sort of falls in between the first two methods. If I don't think ahead and copy files to floppy, I can still transfer multiple files faster with UUPC/UUCP than by manually logging in and using kermit or Xmodem, hence the phone call is shorter==cheaper. [All right, I lied, there's a fourth method]: 4) One other method worth mentioning is that many or most of the really useful code offerings posted on USENET eventually appear on a "Fish Disk", the freely-redistributable library of Amiga-related software and other goodies. If you see something good posted today, it may be on a Fish Disk in a couple of months or less. If you have a ready source of these gems, another approach to get USENET code onto your Amiga is just to wait a short while and then copy the Fish Disk for yourself. > >The following possible options occur to me, listed in order of >decreasing preference: > > 1) write AmigaDOS disks here at the office and take those home > for loading -- we only have HP 9000s and PCs here capable > of writing 3.5" disks, but I'm prepared to write a program > to write AmigaDOS disks if one doesn't exist and it seems > feasible; Looks to me like a lot of work, if it is indeed possible. > 2) write 3.5" DomesDos disks at the office and read them using > some Amiga/PC utility at home -- this seems the most plausible; This looks more likely, given that there are utility programs (such as Dos-2-Dos) which can read/write DOS-format floppies, but DOS machines using certain floppy controller chips might not even be able to read/write AmigaDOS floppies. Look back at earlier discussion here on USENET about the floppy data format used on the Amiga, how it allows for higher data storage by storing data in tracks rather than physical sectors, and how that can confuse floppy controller chips. Software on the Amiga side can prepare and digest raw disk data that looks like separate physical sectors as required on those other machines. > 3) use UUPC or some other comms software to talk to our office > systems for downloading -- this involves either 'phone bills > or moving the 2000, neither of which I fancy doing often; That's one of my methods. This in conjunction with manual upload/download using a good terminal emulator makes a pretty good modem-based methodology, to augment your careful planning and foresight to copy the required files onto a disk and carry it to your home machine. > 4) actually spend money on some additional hardware, such as > an external 5.25" drive, and use that to read PC-written disks. With this and Dos-2-Dos you'll be able to SneakerNet those ubiquitous MSDOS-format 5.25" disks. But you say you can read/write 3.5" MSDOS disks at work already, so you don't need the 5.25" drive. But other folks might... >So; how do *you* get stuff onto your Amiga? Some, many, or all of the above. But because my own work is severely curtailed by my obligations at the company whose facilities allow me to read and respond to USENET postings such as this, I rely heavily on the Amiga community at large to feed my hungry Amy. A few specific such contributions were mentioned above. Thanks Fred! Thanks Dave! Thanks Dan! Thanks to everybody in the Amiga community who creates such useful, attractive, mind-boggling, and downright sexy goodies for the Amiga, and makes them available to us all. This article is already long enough. I won't mention the need for care when downloading binaries from anywhere, even USENET, to make sure that you don't unleash some scurrilous virus on your system. [whoops! I just mentioned it. Oh, well...] I prefer source code, myself. I can't swear to examining each and every line of source to insure its safety and purpose, but at least I have a better hope than if I have no source, or if I do not insure that the binary I run comes from the source I examined. The delay/lagtime I mentioned in waiting for Fish Disks also allows time for alarums/outcries of anything untoward... Hope this helps... -- Eric Black "Garbage in, Gospel out" Atherton Technology, 1333 Bordeaux Dr., Sunnyvale, CA, 94089 UUCP: {sun,decwrl,hpda,pyramid}!athertn!ericb Domainist: ericb@Atherton.COM
higgin@cbmvax.UUCP (Paul Higginbottom MKT) (01/26/89)
In article <1487@zen.UUCP> frank@zen.co.uk (Frank Wales) writes:
[background about buying an A2000 and wanting to use usenet stuff]
$So; how do *you* get stuff onto your Amiga?
Well I know you used to need everyone's signature including the
Queen's in order to use a modem in England, but why can't you just
log in with your Amiga from home, and download that way? The
de-archiving programs should be readily available. My Amiga is
connected as a terminal at work (9600 baud) and when I'm at
home I just use a Hayes at 1200 (slower, but still workable).
Good luck,
Paul.
Disclaimer: these are my own opinions and not necessarily
those of my employer.