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From: kellerer@informatik.tu-muenchen.de (Ignaz Kellerer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.introduction,comp.sys.amiga.misc,comp.sys.amiga.programmer,comp.answers,news.answers
Subject: Amiga FAQ (Frequently asked questions) (Part 1 of 4)
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Date: 19 Dec 1995 17:00:26 GMT
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Summary: Frequently asked questions on the Amiga.
New users should read this!
Originator: kellerer@hphalle3e.informatik.tu-muenchen.de
Xref: news1.ucsd.edu comp.sys.amiga.introduction:6096 comp.sys.amiga.misc:84370 comp.sys.amiga.programmer:65172 comp.answers:13173 news.answers:51420
Posted-By: auto-faq 2.4
Archive-name: amiga/introduction/part1
Last-modified: Tuesday, 19. November 1995
Posting-Frequency: ever fourth week
Message of the Week:
+--------------------[ MOTW ]----------------------+
| Friday, 18th August 1995 |
+--------------------------------------------------+
| Due to the size of the AmigaFAQ and the huge |
| phone costs a lot of people have to pay, |
| I decided to post the AmigaFAQ every four weeks |
| instead of biweekly. |
+--------------------------------------------------+
| I have heared of some sysadmins who dont deal |
| correct with expiretimes. |
| |
| Please tell me if the AmigaFAQ doesnt stay the |
| whole four weeks in the Newsgroup! |
| |
| Thank you. |
+--------------------------------------------------+
| Enjoy the FAQ! |
| Ignaz Kellerer |
+--------------------------------------------------+
Frequently asked questions (FAQ) concerning the Amiga. [1/4]
------------------------------------------------------------
Below you find a list of frequently asked questions. It should especially
be for new users but perhaps experienced users may find something too.
This is part 1, the second begins with chapter 4, the third with chapter 5,
the fourth with chapter 7.
It is in Ascii format to be easily read by everyone. It is also available
in AmigaGuide, Dvi and html (for WWW servers) format as part of the Amiga-FAQ
archive. (File docs/misc/AmigaFAQ.lha on any Aminet site)
Please note the following:
- Changes since the last posting are marked with a
! changed this line/section, respectively
+ added this line
< removed something before this line
- An index is at the bottom of part 4. If this still doesn't help:
E-mail me, probably I can include an answer into the FAQ.
- Suggestions, contributions, critics and beer bottles are very
welcome. :-) Send them to:
Ignaz Kellerer
Georg-Habel-Str. 11
81241 Muenchen (Germany)
Tel. (+49) 089 / 885147
Internet: kellerer@informatik.tu-muenchen.de
===========================(Cut here)=========================================
Amiga-FAQ
*********
This document lists some frequently asked questions and tries to
give answers. Its intention is to help new users and to reduce the
amount of news that most experienced users don't like to read anymore.
Please notice that there are many questions that aren't answered yet,
even more: Whole sections that remain empty! I feel that I cannot give
satisfying answers. So it's your turn: Fill the gaps and tell me what i
should include into this document!
Disclaimer
1 CPU, Custom chips, RAM and other stuff
1 What are 68EC020, 68EC030 and 68LC040?
2 What's an FPU?
3 Can I use a 3.5' HD in my A1200?
2 The Operating System
1 Can I use another Kickstart than the builtin?
2 The Graphical User Interface
3 What is MUI?
1 Icon collections and Backgrounds
4 What is the Amiga equivalent of . (Current directory)?
5 The PIPE: queue-handler
1 Using PIPE: in a standard AmigaShell environment
2 The Pipe command
3 Pipe command support in AmigaShell
4 Quick usage guide
5 Related things
6 Troubleshooting
6 ARexx, the program control language
3 How about Graphics?
1 What are chunky and planar displays?
2 What is doublebuffering?
3 What monitors will work on my Amiga 1200/4000?
4 How do I switch between PAL and NTSC?
4 Programming
1 What documentation do I need as an Amiga programmer?
2 What is CATS?
3 Where do I get the Amiga includes?
4 How do I become a developer?
5 What compilers (assemblers) are there?
6 Those never working Esc sequences!
7 Is it possible to use AmigaBasic on the A1200?
8 How do I localize my program?
9 How to obtain a pointer to a console's window
10 What are pragmas?
11 My Compiler/Linker is complaining about missing symbol xxx.
12 Where do I find the function xxx?
13 The GNU C compiler: general information and installation
1 Current Version
2 Requirements
3 Authors
4 Sources for Gcc
5 Inline Headers
6 Amiga Libraries
7 Installation
8 Compiling
9 How to get help
5 Applications
1 Text Editors
2 What word processors are there?
3 Desktop Publishing
4 What is TeX and where can I get it?
5 Are there any Postscript interpreters?
1 Amiga Font Formats
2 Frequently Requested Amiga Fonts
3 Commercial Font Sources
4 Non-Latin fonts on the Amiga
5 Amiga Font Installation
6 Amiga Font Utilities
7 Making Outline Fonts
8 Problems and Possible Solutions
6 How to deal with Non-Latin texts?
1 Japanese editors and viewers
2 Chinese text viewers
6 Connecting your Amiga to the world
7 Emulators
1 Can I run Unix on my Amiga?
2 Is it possible to use the Amiga as X11 terminal?
3 Is there a way to start MS-Dos programs?
4 How to mount MsDos-formatted Syquests on Amiga
8 Miscellaneous
1 Is there any unix version of LhA?
2 What are files ending with ...?
3 Is there a Stacker-like utility to pack my hard drive?
4 Where do I get Fish disk xxx?
9 Where and how do I get software and other informations?
1 Files and databases on freely distributable software
2 A collection of tests
3 Getting files from a FTP server
4 Getting files from a Mail server
5 Getting files from a mailbox
6 The Fish PD series
1 The Amiga Library disks
2 The Fresh Fish CD-Roms
7 How do I Read and write MS-Dos disks?
8 How do I split large files?
9 Discussing things
10 Other FAQ's
The Amiga-FAQ archive
Contributions
Credits
Index
Disclaimer
**********
This document is
Copyright (C) Ignaz Kellerer
Georg-Habel-Str. 11
81241 Munich (Germany)
Tel. (+49) 089 / 885147
Internet: kellerer@informatik.tu-muenchen.de
Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim and modified
copies of this document following the terms of the "GNU General Public
License" provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are
preserved on all copies.
The author gives *absolutely no* warranty that the answers given
here are correct or usable. Many of them were contributed by other users
and I cannot even make marginal checks. If you think that something
should be changed, please tell me. Suggestions, contributions, new
answers, critics, flames (oh, how I like this `nil:' :-) are rather
welcome. See Contributions.
1 CPU, Custom chips, RAM and other stuff
****************************************
This chapter contains questions concerning the Amiga-Hardware.
1.1 What are 68EC020, 68EC030 and 68LC040?
==========================================
Motorola, the company producing the 680x0 family offers crippled
versions of their processors. They are a little bit cheaper than the
originals, that's why Commodore decided to build the 68EC020 into the
A1200 and the 68EC030 into the A4000/030.
The difference between the 68020 and the 68EC020 is that the latter
can address just 16Mb of memory. That's why the A1200 cannot have more
that 10 Mb RAM. In most cases you will not notice the difference.
This is not the case for the 68EC030: Many owners will notice that
the 68030 has an MMU and the 68EC030 doesn't have. There are some
important programs depending on an MMU, for example Enforcer (a
debugging utility), GigaMem (a program to emulate virtual memory) or
all current Unix versions (see Unix). Other Amigas than the A4000 and
the A3000 need an additional processor card using a 68030 or 68040 or
68060 to run these.
Finally the 68LC040 is a 68040 without FPU. See FPU.
1.2 What's an FPU?
==================
The first 680x0 processors (upto 68030) could process integers only.
Floating point operations had to be emulated by the software. An FPU is
a chip (or part of a chip) that can process floating point operations, a
mathematical coprocessor.
One separates three FPU types on the Amiga: The 68881, 68882 and the
68040's internal FPU. The 68882 is up to 1.5 times faster than the
68881, because it is splitted in two parts: A conversion unit (the
FPU's are using an 80 bit format internally) and the arithmetic unit.
The 68040's internal FPU adds a pipeline, but misses the trigonometric
instructions of the others. These are still emulated by the software,
68040.library for example.
Special programs (Raytracing, DTP, Mathematics, TeX) are offered in a
special coprocessor version which are up to 50 times faster than the
original versions.
Michael Kaiser (kaiser@ira.uka.de)
1.3 Can I use a 3.5' HD in my A1200?
====================================
Many people would prefer to use a 3.5" instead of the smaller 2.5"
drives as the former are much cheaper. This is possible, but you need a
special cable to connect the drive to your IDE controller. Additionally
you should put some isolating material between the drive and the main
board. Some people report termic problems but I did not notice anything.
Some dealers offer a set which contains the cable, isolating material
and for about 20$. See the magazines for more information.
Thomas Schuh (thomas@stepout.tynet.sub.org)
If you are going to install an IDE-harddisk, regardless if 2.5" or
3.5", you should always consider that the it may not work flawlessly,
if the drive and ROM-version have not been tested and approved by
Commodore. Regarding the A1200, one should also remember that this
Amiga has not been designed to hold 3.5" harddisk drives. The 2.5"
drives, which are mainly thought for portable computers, may have some
advantages (for example in power consumption, heat emission or shock
resistance) that could pay off because of the small keyboard case of
the A1200 and the limited power supply. With the larger 3.5" drives,
ventilation inside the computer might also be disturbed. If it is
necessary to remove some shielding inside the A1200 to make the drive
fit inside, even radio interference may occur.
To sum it up: if 3.5" harddisk drives could really be used in the
A1200 without any problems, you could be sure Commodore themselves
wouldn't have used the slightly more expensive 2.5" drives in the
A1200-HD.
2 The Operating System
**********************
This chapter handles questions concerning the operating system,
Kickstart as well as the Workbench.
2.1 Can I use another Kickstart than the builtin?
=================================================
First let's drop some words on the Kickstart's Copyright: This
belongs to Commodore, you *must not* use Kickstarts, without the right
to do it! Especially it isn't allowed to make an image of anyone
else's Kickstart and run this on your own Amiga. (I even doubt that it
is allowed to do this on your own Amigas, if you have more than one.)
But of course it is possible and allowed for some people, developers
for example. There are two different ways, a hardware solution and a
software solution. The former is to buy a card which can hold two or
more Kickstart ROMS and allows to select between when the System is
booting.
The software solution needs a program (softkicker) and an image of
the ROM. The softkicker allocates RAM, loads the ROM image into the
allocated memory and reboots. Of course you have less RAM after the
Reboot: 256Kb when running Kickstart 1.2 or 1.3 and 512Kb for Kickstart
2.0 or higher.
There are different Softkickers, some of them needing a MMU (see
68EC0xx). I recommend SKick 3.43 (Aminet, directory `util/boot')
because it doesn't need a MMU and supports many different Kickstarts.
It is rather easy to create the ROM image using the following program:
#include <stdio.h>
#define kickorig 0xf80000 /* 0xfc0000 for Kick 1.2 und 1.3 */
#define kicklen 0x080000 /* 0x040000 for Kick 1.2 und 1.3 */
void main(int argc, char*argv[])
{
FILE *fh;
if ((fh = fopen("kickstart.file", "w")) != NULL) {
result = fwrite(kickorig, kicklen, 1, fh);
}
fclose(fh);
}
2.2 The Graphical User Interface
================================