Commodore Amiga Retro

Please remember that text for pages was originally
written for my Amiga 1200 to read... so thin paragraphs

Getting on the WEB with an AMIGA Man is this so old now.. Remember that The Computer To get on the web and surf with an Amiga you need both a machine with a but of grunt and a graphics card. Whilst it is possible to fit graphics cards to A1200`s this will mean towering up, so probably better to get an A4000d or A3000 and fit a graphics card within the existing system I chose to obtain an A4000d and although the machine I have is just an 030 it does come equipped with a Blizzard 4030..Processor: 030@50Mhz FPU: 68882 (PGA) at the same speed as the processor. All my RAM is on the original motherboard and this is just about the minimum you would need, being just 12MB Fast and 2MB Chip. And so my weapon of choice is a Commodore Amiga 4000 Desktop - board revision B Phase 5 Blizzard 4030 accelerator with 68030/50 CCU with MMU and 68882/50 FPU - 2 Mb chip RAM 12 Mb fast RAM - Kickstart ROM`s 3.1 - super Buster 11 New battery - original hd floppy drive assembly (1.76 Mb) 840 Mb IDE non removable disk furnished with Amiga OS 3.1 8x IDE CD ROM The Graphics Card Graphics cards come in various flavours The best being the PicassoIV, I believe, though the Cybervision64 and 3D version are pretty good You can also get other cards like the Picollo, but for the purposes here I chose the Cybervision64 The software required to run the card is the Cybergraphics software that came on a disk with the card. If you do ever obtain a card do try and get the software and the manual for jumper settings and the like Cybervision64 A Zorro III only graphics card. Pixel clock ~ 135Mhz (8bit), 80Mhz (16bit) and 50Mhz (24bit). Built-in monitor switcher. Hardware support for chunky to planar conversion. Digital video expansion bus. One issue with the Graphics card is the screen resolution. There is a pass through on the back of the card so that you can still receive the original Amiga screen formats, when used in conjunction with a Multiscan monitor, such as a Microvitec. If you don`t have this type of monitor and simply connect into a VGA monitor you won`t see the Amiga Low RES message that asks for screen options. You can connect another Amiga friendly monitor into the original Amiga video port but I found the loop through from the original Amiga video port to the input on the graphics card essential. Fast Serial Port I considered long and hard the benefit of getting a serial port enhancer to boost my transfer rates and determined that whilst not essential, a card such as the Multiface below would certainly help in speeding matters up when on line The modem used is a 56 US Robotics which you can buy from any decent sized computer supplier Remember that modern modems will come with a 9 pin connector so if you use the conventional serial port on the A4000d you will need a dual connector with the 25pin version. Fortunately the Multiface has a 9 pin to take the connector from the US Robotics Amiga Multiface III Zorro Card IO extender (Fast Serial/Parallel Port) Two serial ports controlled (up to 115200 bps transfer speed) 3 byte FIFO buffer Two 26 pin internal headers The first is directly wired to the DB9 connector on the slot cover of the card The second is for the ribbon cable of the DB25 connector on the separate slot cover Supported by Linux and NetBSD One bidirectional DB25 parallel port with a faster transfer speed than IOExtender's No ROM or EPROM - no autoconfig drivers, duart.device (serial) and pit.device (parallel) have to be mounted with the supplied MFC program disk. With manual, software disk and ribbon cables for further ports. THE INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDER The best way to do this I found was to sign up with one of the free providers, like FreeUK using a PC if you can get to one, and then going into Outlook Express checking the account and simply making a note of the POP3 mail and smtp servers together with your email address and password. It is then just a case of inserting these into your TCP/IP stacker.. see below. You will also need the telephone number to ring out which the dialer the provider gives on the PC will show Simply go onto Dial Up Networking and right click on properties for the respective dialer ie FreeUK THE TCP/IP STACKER Whilst Nordic Global are no longer shipping their excellent MiamiDX, the archive is still available from Aminet. The installation is very simple and the step by step instructions make it pretty well impossible to install incorrectly. There is a timeout sadly on the demo, but you may be lucky in obtaining a key MIAMIDX Short: TCP/IP router stack (main archive) Author: kruse@nordicglobal.com Version: 3.2b2 Requires: OS 2.04 or higher, 68020+, MUI 3.8+ Words from Aminet This is the main archive for Miami Deluxe 1.0c. Miami Deluxe is an easy-to-use TCP/IP stack for Internet access and access to local networks, complete with dialer, PPP, (C)SLIP and auto-configuration tools. It supports multiple interfaces, routing IP-NAT, SOCKSD, dial-on-demand and much more. You will also need other archives -- see below. Minimum requirements: - Any Amiga with Kick/WB2.04 or higher - 68020 or higher - MUI 3.8 or higher Miami Deluxe 1.0c is distributed across two archives: one main archive and one GUI module. - MiamiDx10c-main.lha: Main archive. *Everybody* needs to download this archive. - MiamiDx10c-MUI.lha: MUI user interface module for MiamiDx. Requires MUI 3.8 or higher. At this time you need to download both archives. Holger Kruse kruse@nordicglobal.com Check the link below Miami Archive You may find you need one or two libraries and installers to unpack software and run applications. You will find all these on Aminet... like the latest installer and reqtools and ofcourse MUI 3.8 MUI 3.8 You really won`t get very far on an Amiga without MUI and this can still be purchased. You can opt to buy the USER INTERFACE key or run the demo. Personally I opted to buy the key and was emailed this by return having purchased this through a PC on line MUI installs automatically so there are no problems with the installation For MUI 3.8 Check the link below MUI Software The Mail Reader For my money there is only one mail reader and this is YAM. The software is free. I would recommend getting it from the YAM website as the all the five archives are here and they are not corrupt. Although it looks as though you don`t need all five archives you do need all five and you must un-archive them into a single folder. You will need LHA which is an Amiga tool that resides in your C drawer on your workbench Hopefully you have DOPUS, which makes life all that easier. Again, its just a case of firing up the install icon and installing the software on your system. When running YAM you will need your POP3 and smtp names, like pop3.freeuk.net and relay.freeuk.net or pop3.virgin.net and smtp.virgin.net, your domain name like freeuk.net and your mail account name and password. Its that simple. For YAM Check the link below YAM Website BROWSER I purchased AWEB-II off Ebay, but there are several about. Like Ibrowse which all do the job of surfing As ever the software is self installing, and in the case of AWEB, there is no further setting up of the software. For AWEB Check the link below AWEB Site Rememeber that for both mail and internet you need to go on-line with MIAMI to get the stack running Also remember to tell the payer of the telephone bill what your up to... Happy surfing. If you can only see this CONTENT window then click the image above for the full site Last updated 07/10/06