fluxcoil wiki

Revived my Amiga 500, after 20 years. Samsung monitor has a scart connector, just right for the Amiga. I got a serial connection between Linux↔Amiga setup, and can transfer adf disk images to the Amiga, directly writing them to df0.

This follows one of the ideas from here, and copies the AmigaBASIC interpreter to the ramdisk.

cd/
copy c/copy ram:
copy c/dir ram:
# change disk to Basic disk
cd df0:
ram:dir
ram:copy AmigaBASIC ram:

• http://www.boomerangsworld.de/cms/vc/amiga_transfer.html - transfers
• First step: attach a serial nullmodem line. Execute “echo hello-amiga >/dev/ttyUSB0” on Linux, and “type SER:” on the Amiga, ensure you see “hello-amiga”.
• Next: download and compile apccomm
• Then, use receive.bas and AmigaBASIC to transfer apccom-nogui to the Amiga. After that, it can be used to do transfers via serial and directly write images to disks. I use an Amiga500 with memory extension, so 1MB RAM.

### pc
apccomm -s /dev/ttyUSB0 --speed 19200 Stateart.adf

### Amiga
# Boot workbench, execute shell
copy c/copy ram:
copy c/dir ram:
# put the disk containing apccom-nogui in the drive (I use the Basic disk)
ram:copy df0:apccom-nogui ram:
# put the workbench disk in the drive
apccom-nogui --serial --speed 19200 -d

• external floppy not working:
  • workbench reports “DF1:BAD”, sysinfo reports that the disk is not recognized. Opening it, nothing obvious sticking out. Head is not moving back/forward, but does these “small moves” when no disk is in the drive.
  • Cleaned the axis used for motor movements, use WD-40 contact cleaner on contacts. Now, inserting a floppy, it spins up but never stops. The head is moved to most inner track. systest says “No READY signal: PC or Escom drive?” and “No Track 0: Drive not Present?”
• power brick: high pitch noise.
  • Opened it up (the 4 screw holes were covered with solid plastic, I had to get that out with screws), but no obvious issues like bended capacitors can be seen.
  • Got a hint that the coils might be the issue, they start to oscillate. Fixing them with hotglue should help.
  • Idea for next debug session: run it while case is open. Form a tube with paper, start a spectrograph app on the mobile phone, point the tube at various components and try to locate the one emitting the noise
  • replace inner pieces of the current power brick with new power supply, i.e. “MEAN WELL RT-50B”
  • https://retrousbpower.com/
• amiga: should open it up and watch for issues like leaking caps
• retrowhitening should be done :)
• for cleaning:
  • isopropylalcohol
  • silicone grease/silikonfett, to lubricate
  • contact cleaner/Kontaktspray, i.e. WD-40 Kontaktspray

• http://www.stoeggl.com/amiga/
• https://github.com/BlitterStudio/amiberry - Amiberry, for emulation
• https://whdload.de/ - allows harddisk installation of games/demos which are intended for floppy. Also c't 23/8 featured whdload