where is a no floppy drive click option?

hello, I was looking in my newly installed OS4.0 for a no drive click option some where. Does it exist?
Or did they forgot it?
Ciao
S.

@satiropan

I thought fdtool had an option for it but it actually doesn't look like it has.

6.AmigaOS:> fdtool ?
U=UNIT/K/N,D=DEBUG/K/N,A=AUTO/S,M=MANUAL/S,C=CHECKNOW/S,I=INFO/S,V=VERS=VERSION/S:

On Aminet there was an utility called anticlick.. you could try it and see if it still works on amiga os 4.0..

@nubechecorre

It won't work on OS4.

The "problem" is that we are limited to what the VIA 686B floppy controller hardware can do. It's the same reason why we can't read old Amiga format disks - the hardware can't.

The "click" comes from stepping the head back and forth one step because that's the only way to find out if there is a disk in the drive.

With the Classic Paula hardware, it was possible to make the same determination without actually moving the head, but I think it's not possible on an XE.

It has been suggested that a different approach to the hardware could do it, but I haven't time to try it and frankly, there isn't the need.

If you want to stop the infernal clicking, set checking to "MANUAL", it's the only way.

"fdtool AUTO" turns it on;
"fdtool MANUAL" turns it off.

Of course, if auto check is OFF, it won't recognise disk changes automatically.

@tonyw

Quote:

The way it worked AIUI is that instead of stepping from track 0 to track 1 to find out if a disk was present, it would step backwards from track 0. This would still determine if a disk was present, but wouldn't move the head as backwards from 0 is nowhere. On some drives the head would still move to track -1, damaging the drive - hence the health warnings which accompany anti-click utilities.

I don't see why this approach wouldn't still work on the VIA, although with a larger range of floppy drive makes and models, working out if it is likely to be safe before enabling the option will probably be a tricky task. As you say, it probably isn't worth it. I can't remember when I last used a floppy disk.

@Chris

well I still use floppies, sometime to move a small file from PC to Amiga, since it is quicker than burning it on cd and I don't have USB on my A1200.
This push me more and more to think they didn't do a good job.
Like they developed os4.0 on non classic Amiga machines, or not even Amiga machines, otherwise they would have noticed the fastidious click which is here to fuss Amigans ears since the beginning (1985!).
This, plus few other things I have found, or not found, don't make me so appreciative on os4.0 on classic Amigas :(
Seems more like they did os4.0 for classic just to milk some money from classic Amiga fans as me :(

edit:
anyway, I still can read or write old (3.1) formatted Amiga floppies :)

@satiropan

If you need to read and write old Amiga floppy disks buy a Catweasel MK4.

it also does the clicking sound, but the interval shoud slow down in my driver, becouse the sound make me totally mad.

@satiropan

but personal I think its better to get USB addon card for your A1200, its faster and can transfer more data, unless you need a ADF backup of your disks.

@satiropan

Oh, you're on Classic - that's a different kettle of 'nanas.

IIRC on OS3.5 NoClick was integrated into the OS and added to DOS prefs. Seems odd that this would be removed unless the required source code wasn't available. May well just be an oversight (OS4.0 for Classic is based on OS4.0 for AmigaOne which already would have had this option removed)

@satiropan

Quote:
You could always do what I used to do on my Classic Amigas - keep a floppy in the drive.

I had an old floppy I used just for that.

@satiropan

Sorry, didn't realise you were running a Classic. In that case, forget everything I said about the floppy driver, you are using the old-fashioned floppy driver from years ago, unchanged since yonks.

Try the "noclick" hack that was mentioned before, it might work on an old Classic, but no promises.

[The hardware drivers for OS4 Classic are the old original drivers, merely recompiled for PPC. They should be completely compatible with your old hardware. The hardware drivers for the AmigaOne, on the other hand, are all new because of the new hardware. I know the a1floppy.device best 'coz I wrote it ]


@Chris - I did try the "step to track -1" trick once, but I couldn't get it to work at the time and gave up. Several other devs have said it should work but there are more important things to do. Unfortunately there are several other "features" of the VIA floppy controller that don't work either. One of the most interesting was the so-called "raw" mode, which got me excited because I thought I might be able to read old Amiga-formatted floppies. However, the controller hardware still depends on the IBM standard sector headers, so won't recognise Amiga formatting

@RacerX

Quote:

Yes, I used to keep a formatted but non-installed disk in my drives too. OS would boot up take a moment to recognise the disk then proceed. Of course, again it would need to load it to workbench as well.

Not exactly rocket science or cpu friendly but will work while you track down a real solution

@Slayer

so I succeded, I installed wildclick.lha from Aminet, the smallest noclick utility, placed it in c: made a call for it in the beginning of user-startup, with this template NOWILDSTAR/S
now no more click hassle :)
thanx to all

@satiropan

Yay! Success.

@satiropan

Cool Bananas!

good for reference too!

We need to compile a Do's list for OS4

i.e. common problems, working solutions!

Slayer makes a note of potential second programming project - Interactive AI for solving problems

@Slayer
and all...
I have still one doubt.
before I received my new BVision, I had to install 4.0 with AGA, it was a pain, since the default installer PAL screen is 800x600!
I decided then to create a new .ISO image of the installing CD with no .prefs files, so that there would not be useless colors and resolutions on a PAL installation.
The process worked almost perfect, just that installation stops in the end, when on screen you read that it is copying the preferences files.
Anyway I extract floppy and cd and reboot.
Surprise, OS4.0 boots OK, just a couple of requesters that it doesn't find something, but I commented (;) a line on startup sequence and added the requested drawer on sys: from the cd and it is OK.
Surprise surprise! now windows move empty and there is no drive click, as I like!
But I made this consideration:
If erasing all the .prefs files from the cd, made a no drive click installation, where the heck is the possibility to disable drive click in a normal installation?
Any guess?