User avatar
Shot97
Detroit, MI, USA

Posted Tue Feb 07, 2017 11:46 am

The way I have TCPSER set up I would hope I can just type in 555-0001 for Particles. Perhaps you can skip the fake number and put in particles there. The numbers seem like a smaller and simple way to go about it though. I may not memorize what 555-0005 is, but I will know it will take me somewhere, and if I want to go somewhere else I just go one up! I use the address book in A-Talk III for the most part, but it will both allow you to input the entire web address via the dial option, as well as 555-0001 in my case for particles. I've found the address book to be super nice for me though.

User avatar
intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Thu Feb 09, 2017 10:13 am

I started working through the beginning stages of this - meaning I started getting software installed and setup on both the Amiga side and PC side.

Right off the bat, my Spidey Sense started tingling after I watched the first half of your video for a second time to refresh my memory (the setup half). A-Talk III. . .

I went to my backup disk collection, which includes 2 large sets of 3-ring binders, 4 disks per page. There on the last sheet in the 2nd binder I had a pristine backup copy of A-Talk III. I looked everywhere but never found the original disk(s).

Anyway, I popped it in the drive. And there she was.
IMG_6783.JPG
A-Talk III's launch window.

And there was the HD-Install option, which you've included in your post.
IMG_6784.JPG
Install options for A-Talk III.

Right off the bat you can see this piece of software is very high-quality and at a professional level. I can understand why you gravitate towards it so strongly. It is literally filled with options. Now, I went through the HD-Install steps (which were very clear and helpful off the disk). But I made sure to reference the manual along the way. One part of it I wanted to point out to anyone out there (like myself) who is still feeling their way through things.

In your post, you correctly mention to use the ASSIGN command in your Startup Sequence to point directly at A-Talk III. (For those that don't know, the ASSIGN command tells your Amiga to run a program automatically whenever you boot.) Of course, the path is completely dependent on the name of your drives and partitions. In the Appendix of the manual, page B-2, they suggest the following:

Code: Select all

IF EXISTS disk:at
     Assign AT3: disk:at
     Path AT3: add
EndIF
The partition named disk: in the code sample is the one that you entered during the beginning of the install process (and the install only succeeds if you create a valid path for the software to be installed in). This is required so that A-Talk can find its settings, phone book and script files.

I only bring this up because everyone's systems could have various names. In fact, with my GVP SCSI hard drive, my partitions have the unusual names of QDH0: (System) and QDH1: (Fun). So during the install, I actually had to tell A-Talk III to install to:
QDH0:Utilities/ to get the program where I wanted it, and use that same path in my Startup Sequence.

Anyhoo - it's a minor thing. I think the manual's code suggestion is written so that if the machine can't find the program being assigned during Startup the machine won't hang or do some other unexpected thing if it can't find the program to assign. I'll post my results here if I can get the 2000 onto Particles.

Couple of last things about A-Talk III I found really interesting. In the acknowledgements section of the manual, Dave Haynie and Robert J. Mical (among others) are called out for various features they assisted with - pretty cool! And that odd looking "FD Install" feature in the image attachment (ever hear of Floppy Disk Installation?). This is for non-NTSC USA Amigas only. It moves over special fonts and keyboard setups. I only have Disk 1 -and it still asked me what language I wanted during the install.

I think the XPR installation is for users who need support for "Multiple Serial/Printer/Scripts'. Pretty robust package.

User avatar
Shot97
Detroit, MI, USA

Posted Thu Feb 09, 2017 1:06 pm

I remember reading something about those original Amiga guys; they seem to just keep popping up in all my favorite games/software. haha.

What you have there is not the floppy disk I found online. My install routine was given because there was none. Damn internet again... Nobody seems to dump their original disks... Probably deleted those off it to save disk space. Nope; I had figured it was designed for floppy coming out so early, and so I told everyone how to install it anyway. If it had included its own hard drive install I would have run with that.

User avatar
intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Thu Feb 09, 2017 1:09 pm

Assuming there isn't any copy protection (it's a copy, after all) I could make an ADF of this fine program. Oh yes I could.

User avatar
Shot97
Detroit, MI, USA

Posted Thu Feb 09, 2017 1:12 pm

Thanks for the comment on how disks can have names other than DHO: , etc. I had never come accross such an issue. While I believe it's very important to note these changes leading up to or following an example, I absolutely hate those sorts of examples given in the manual that you showed.

disk:path

I mean they suggested at for the path, but most examples going about it that way are just terrible in my eyes. You truly need an actual FULL example. DH0:AT - just so someone has something real to look at. If it could be wrong on their system then mention it, but it's always a thousand times easier if you have something real to look at, not something you have to ponder.

User avatar
Shot97
Detroit, MI, USA

Posted Thu Feb 09, 2017 1:12 pm

intric8 wrote:Assuming there isn't any copy protection (it's a copy, after all) I could make an ADF of this fine program. Oh yes I could.

and oh yes, you should ;)

User avatar
intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Thu Feb 09, 2017 1:23 pm

re: disk:path

yeah, it took me 3 separate attempts (installs) to get it right. Typing it in the way my machine needed it, it kept failing trying to find the path I typed (which didn't exist).

User avatar
Shot97
Detroit, MI, USA

Posted Thu Feb 09, 2017 1:46 pm

and the "if exists" part is so the startup sequence would continue to load if you screwed up and the folder does not exist where you said it would. Otherwise, if you follow my example and get it wrong; you would be stuck at the CLI. Nothing I haven't seen many times before, you just type loadwb to get back to workbench and to your word processor to try again, or throw in a workbench disk as a boot disk.

I have so many assign's in my startup sequence it would be a major cluster F by putting "if exists" statements in there. I'm putting it in there, therefore it exists :P hahah

User avatar
intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Thu Feb 09, 2017 2:24 pm

and oh yes, you should ;)
I'll see about making one in the next day or two. You can add it to your OP if you want to for any new folk that make their way to the tutorial. :)

User avatar
intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Fri Feb 10, 2017 12:13 pm

Hm, my first go I'm getting an error where tcpser can't find the serial port.

I'm certain the Amiga/cable is on serial port 1. But I'm getting:
FATAL:Could not open serial port /dev/ttys0
in the MSDOS-terminal shell.

Weirdness.





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