Amiga Notes

Some notes while learning about the Amiga, may break into proper pages later...

Target Machine
The point is to emulate an Amiga 1200 with realistic (ie cheap) upgrades, in the optic of moving away from emulation at some point. So  needs to have a profile with the following: Extra:
 * Amiga Model: A1200 with 3.1 ROM (standard with recent model)
 * Hard Drives: Pick a folder, the standard parent directory in  is fine (HD are standard in stock A1200?). I made 2 subfolders   (for Workbench install) and   (for collection of software and files).
 * Kickstart ROM: Custom,  (comes from Workbench 3.1.4 distro)
 * Chip RAM: 2MB (standard)
 * Fast RAM: 8MB (optional, these are relatively cheap)
 * CPU: 68EC020 (standard)
 * MIDI support: add  in the Advanced tab of the Settings menu. Adjust to your sound card.
 * Floppy Drive Speed: Turbo, because emulating slow drive access is a bit pointless here
 * Floppy Drive Sound Emulation: Set to 0 (disabled) because...
 * Video Settings: There is little value to do proper emulation of scale, pixel ratio, etc, for Workbench use, so I picked Integer Scaling, Square Pixels, Hide Bezel and Full Frame.

Workbench/AmigaOS 3.1.4
Workbench is the file manager of AmigaOS, the operating system of the Amiga. The last version is 3.1.4 released in 2018.

Installation

 * Purchase, or find a way to get the disks (you need the Kickstart ROM anyway, there is one single for emu use and 2 files for flashing on real hardware). Make sure you add all the floppies in the swap list of the emu.
 * Boot from floppy
 * Open  from Workbench, and start Install (choose fav language)
 * Installation is straightforward, I picked "Expert User" to only install the ps printer driver and the American keyboard mapping
 * As requested, swap disks during the install (press F12 to do that)
 * When finished, you can eject the last inserted disk and reboot, done

Making use of Workbench
Best is to watch the following: Note: On  The left and right Amiga keys are the left and right SUPER (aka Windows) keys.
 * A Beginners Guide to the Amiga Workbench https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjBU3y4IHTM

Installing software
Command line software is usually installed to be available system wide, while GUI software can run from their own media (CD-ROM, Floppy), or can be executed from any folder on the HD. Some software comes with an  script, some don't. If your software comes with an install script, then usually you just have to double-click on it (granted you have   already installed, see below).

Let's make a  directory to keep all the stuff we're going to be hoarding, in the   HD. See HD config above. We also make a  folder for the applications we install manually. cd ~/FS-UAE/Hard\ Drives/Chocolate mkdir vault run
 * From host

System wide installs for CLI software
Example with installing the very much needed  compression utility. wget http://aminet.net/util/arc/lha.run cd Chocolate:vault dir lha.run Ram: copy lha_68020 C:lha # we only install the binary matching our CPU Another Example with the  software that's needed for install scripts. wget https://aminet.net/util/misc/Installer-43_3.lha Installer-43_3.lha cd Chocolate:vault dir lha x Installer-43_3.lha Ram: copy Ram:Installer43_3/Installer C:
 * From host,  to the vault and download the software
 * From Workbench, start a shell, we're going to unpack the self-extracting archive of  to the , and copy/rename of the binaries to the   directory.
 * Now you can run  from any location in the shell
 * From host,  to the vault and download the software
 * From Workbench, start a shell, we're going to unpack the archive to the, and copy the   binary to the   directory.

Custom location installs for GUI software
GUI software can generally be installed and run pretty much anywhere. Example with OctaMED Soundstudio. wget http://aminet.net/mus/edit/OctamedSS1.03c.lha cd Chocolate:vault dir lha x OctamedSS1.03c.lha Ram: Note: Instead of dragging/copy you can also  from the shell.
 * From host,  to the vault and download the software
 * From Workbench, we're going to unpack the archive to the
 * After that, you can open the, and enter the   drawer (make sure you Window/Show/All Files)
 * Open also the  drawer
 * Drag the big OctaMED icon from the  drawer to the the   drawer.
 * Done, you can double-click the icon to start OctaMED.

Adding Icons to files
The thing that's a bit confusing with WB is that a file or directory may or may not have an Icon. It's not just cosmetics, if a file or directory does not have an Icon, not only it's not visible by default in the WB windows, but it also limits some interaction (for instance configuring  is only possible if there is an Icon). If you need to make a file or directory visible by default when displayed in WB window or if you need to associate it to a specific software, then it needs to have icon metadata, which are just a bunch of extra files that will sit next to the original file. The quickest way to add an Icon, is to drag the file into  located in   drawers and save.

Useful software

 * XPKGuide to open  files