ScuzzBlog: Diaries April 2018 Entry 19th April 2018: Post: 1 Taking Samba for granted I guess I have been using Samba so long for file sharing on the Amiga that I kinda just take it for granted. Its easier with a PC where you simply wire machines together and give them a unique IP address. But with the Amiga when I first started it was mighty hard getting the computer networked. At first I was using Parnet and a little piece of software called AmiPC to communicate between Amiga and PC. When I first linked two PCs I simply used a crossover and NetBui. Time was it was deemed dangerous to leave ports open on the PC, even when using the humble modem. So when I took the plunge and finally had a go at Samba I enlisted the help of the Amiga Samba Group on Yahoo and man were they so helpful, friendly and incredibly knowledgable. I think I was very lucky to catch them whilst the group was still active. Thing about computing is that get the program and or the processes right and they generally will always be right. Trick though is not to mess with the variables. Problems with the computer world today is that the makers of software and programs just love messing with the variables cus then they can sell new products. I learned a long long time ago to keep computers well clear of updates when they are working just fine to avoid them falling over to the dreaded update. Today most I guess are on the clouds or just don't store data. The phone and tablet and ready available online content probably means users don't need to store stuff. Dunno. Don't have a mobile or a tablet or a cloud. For me I have two distinct networks active here. The one is my own local network which is all hardwired and runs through hubs/ports and links over a dozen machines all offline and not in anyway hooked up to the internet. The other is the simple BTHub and the Win7 and Win10 machine and even with those I never have them both on at the same time. Data only finds its way on and off an internet based computer via the USB stick. The PS3 is also online but that doesn't count. So when I am burdening the local power grid of the village with several of my computers running I am clear of unwanted internet activity. What this means is that I have always needed storage. In the early days I would snaffle any old computer getting junked at work just to use the hard drives for storage. I pretty well built my network up around this basic concept and each machine was/is given a loving female name in good old Amiga tradition and then hooked into the system to use the storage. Nothing really has changed in truth and I know each machine by the name and also by some of the very useful software that still exists on the computers. Not sure where the licenses are for some of the machines. I was also able to get the software discs and or disks plus all the various manuals. Man I never throw anything away. So if its Creative 5.1 you need I have the discs. Only this last week I was setting up a surround sound set of speakers and that moment when the OS asks to go on the internet for the drivers, I am always able to slot in the CD. Anyroadup as they say ( who says ? ) ... Back to the subject in hand. Samba and the convenience it gives. I never think about the actual Samba processes and realised last year that I was at risk of forgetting all the efforts needed to get the Amiga talking to PCs. So I set about back tracking through my notes and files and putting together a useful guide just for my benefit, which is what I did and that is on the blog. However a recent post on a forum got me scratching my head as to why some have problems with Amiga files on PCs and I just wanted to be sure I wasn't fooling myself. And so I have these two 2.1SCSI external drives and an internal 2.5" on the treasured A1200 with the Ethernet and so set too backing up across the network. By lunchtime today I had copied the contents of all the hard drives to one Windows98 machine called Kasumi (Dead or Alive) and to two XP machines plus a USB stick and now on the Win7 machine also. I also created two ZIP disks of my Workbench and Samba. The point being that given the way I operate if a hard drive falls over I can simply copy the contents back onto the drive and all will be back to normal. That my friends is the beauty of the Amiga. A time when computer life was way simpler. I never keep one copy of anything, ever. And so to Samba. The view on the forum was the files were not safe on the PC. Again I scratch my head as I don't understand why. Maybe times have changed and folk use machines and the internet in such a way that it is now difficult. I do not know. BUT and that's a big BUT I will go to the grave maintaining that networks should be hard wired and devoid of internet activity. Doesn't mean to say you don't use the internet just that you never cross the streams. Its called the Venkman rule and trust me its a rule and not a guide. So to the girls and today's activities. Sadly today the tripod broke, big time. As ever I found not only a replacement on the Bay but an exact same replacement. I really can't be struggling with kit I know little about. This meant the pictures were cut together from a rather unsteady hand. Hopefully matters will return to abnormal soon. Also remember that this blog is a diary of what I do with my computers. I am not here to serve as educator or teacher. I simply offer my activities up as a mild form of entertainment for those that like to see what a NERD is really like. And no the tape deck did not arrive. Bummer. The Amiga files now safe on the USB stick That's a 32GB stick. My first Amiga had an 80MB hard drive. I always giggle when I read of Amiga users needed very very large hard drives. No idea why. Problem I noticed with the one PC is that the clock was slow and way out of date so I decided to fit a new battery This is one of the networked PCs. An old Evesham computer running XP. Was used as a drawing machine in its day and was hammered during its life. I clean them up and tidy the drives and fit new ones when necessary. Works fine and used as a back up to the main Amiga server. Usefully had DVD writer, CD, USB ports on the front for ease of use. And no floppy Just your typical small form factor PC DVi, network card and sound card Inside is pretty compact and busy Struggling to find the battery Found it and replaced no problem Bit over the top me thinks. Could cut the grass with that thing. The very wonderful Pheonix AwardBIOS Changes the date and checks the drives And we're done And the system fires up blah blah blah And showing my general disrespect for passwords and profiles I called mine ... ' whocares '. Only XP machines I means... who seriously cares. There you have it, the Amiga Vault Endless volumes of collected data All on the PC and with the Amiga file extensions. This is part of the Samba folder. One of many And you can even open the Readme files in Windows The SMBFS Guide SMBFS and SMB files Lets me safely store all my favourite programs like say DPaint AMOS Pro and the like MUI DOpus I can store everything without corrupting the Amiga file structure And that includes full Workbench directories All the Amiga folders such as C Various readme files All your drawers available across the network and so becomes so easy to find anything without going online And I can open text files using Notepad All my DICE folders and programs A vast Aminet library offline OK enough of the files. This is how I build the library from the Amiga. Please note that this is where the tripod broke so I have had to cut images from crudely taken photographs. You'll get the idea Anyway to the Amiga and the Samba Shuffle First on the 1200 I have to click my Card Reset tool. I always get this error and I simply SUSPEND Next up its the Turn of MIAMI I have a simple philosophy when it comes to naming anything on a computer If its something that I have created then make the thing as bleedin' obvious as possible. Never be clever with folder or file names. So important to distinguish what is yours and what is application software. And so the Ethernet Card name for getting onto the network is SEX. Pure and simple And these are the settings. Don't mess Once the Interface is ONLINE ( and please remember that to put online you use the button in the upper row of buttons and not the lower one ) I fire up my script tool from an icon of mine to run NMBD This starts the hand shaking and announces the Amiga to the network... 'Hello girls' Meet Risa Yoshiki a Japanese Gravure model and actress that was in the game Sudden Impact. She resides on Kasumi as Risa D Drive and Yoshiki C drive. Kasumi is the girl out of Dead or Alive Trust me when you have as many computers as I then naming all the drives after gaming females really helps me remember I use Iconian to take a scanned image and turn this into an Amiga Icon. So click Kasumi C with the Risa icon and we get the Yoshiki C drive on Kasumi and a folder opens on the Amiga Workbench To run the SMBFS service I eventually junked all the usual conventions and avoided passwords and the like and called the VOLUME Yoshiki the Workgroup is the computer name, the user is me and the only really important part is the file path for the drive and so Service=//Kasumi/C/.. which gives full access to the C Drive on the Windows machine Checking the drive config through DOPUS picks up yoshiki as SMBFS0 This is then set to a button So I created a folder for today called Amiga Scuzz April 2018 and copied a few Samba files over. The name Clara on DOpus represents the main Amiga Repository on yet another PC. There are twelve in total Anyone who knows DOpus understands that by right clicking the left button bank you can scroll through all your drives. You can also set the bank up with a scroll bar And there we have it... my new folder created on the Windows machine with some Samba files in Simple as that. And like I say I have gotten so use to doing it I kinda take Samba for granted. Unlike some that I read on the forums I just don't get any issues with file names. But then I had some great teachers Many thanks to the Samba Group on Yahoo

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Last updated 19/04/2018

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