OS4.1 extra stuff

Thanks, a lot of clocks!

Anyone can answer the back up question?
I remember just dragging and dropping the Workbench (OS3.9 -what I now call AmigaOS partition in OS4) anywhere on the hard drive or another hard drive, this way I would back up my system in case it got corrupted. All I had to do was to copy back.
Is this still the case or am I imagining it?

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Yes, this works. And it even correctly preserves soft links (which are used inside Sys:SObjs).

However, it is an extremely slow way to do it when you want to *update* your backup, and I am not sure how you can restore your backup without loosing the soft link info (you cannot just drag'n'drop back).

What would be the best way to back up your OS? Obviously I can back up my Work: partition by just saving the stuff inside it somewhere else but the partition where the OS resides is a different story.

With Windows I use Ghost, making an image of the entire HD.

Is there anything similar for OS4 or shall I just carry on using my drag and drop method?

Something like an imager would really be a cool adition to the OS4 software pool, one that read/writes track-wise instead of file-wise.
That way we would get a 1:1 image.

Not sure if it is possible though...biggest problem would be the differing fs's

@Raziel
RawDisk (in Utilities).

What does it do and how do you use it? Does it make images of your selected partition/entire HD? Is there a link anywhere? Thanks!

Come on, lazy... you aren't trying at all.

SYS:Documentation/Utilities/rawdisk.doc:

* RawDisk reads or writes a given number of cylinders or blocks to or from a
* disk, transferring the data to or from a named file. The data is
* read or written in raw format, ie the disk filesystem (if any) is
* ignored and data is addressed absolutely.

Thanks! I didn't know that...remember I have only come back actively to OS4 recently. When it says raw what does it mean?
If use Rawdisk would I be creating a perfect uncompressed image? And how do I restore it?
I'll do some reading.

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Uuuuh, nice, i didn't know that was a backup feature, i always thought it is meant for reading and writing unknown media

Cool, thanks for the hint

/me off to test

AmiDVD is another very good backup solution.

It can create a DVD of your system and you can even boot from this DVD (from U-Boot too) in order to restore your system.

Great!

But how do you actually restore it? I mean put the same image back on partition AmigaOS for example?

It's not an image. AmiDVD burns your system on the DVD (and can make this one bootable).

You just have to copy everything back to your HD.

Let's say you've made a backup of your system with AmiDVD and the made it bootable for U-Boot.

Just start you Sam with the DVD in. Start on the DVD. When fully loaded (with errors regarding paths but that's not important). Prepare your HD (with the same name as before) and then copy everything back to it.

As simple as it is.

Cool! That it great! Thanks!

Best C64, Spectrum 48K, MAME, Playstation 1, 2 and 3(?), DOS PC and Nintendo64 emulator for OS4.1?

@TheDaddy

Zx-Spectrum - FUSE Good one, tested myself with my childhood games from zx48: zycaps, soldier of fortune, hymphrey (btw, we have a modern os4 native version of that game) and few others). Latest version on aminet (someone should reupload it on os4depot too)

Playstation1 - FPSE Very good one, very fast. You can play in all those desctruction derby, crash bandicoot, pandemonium and even Tekken3 (through as i remember for tekken need to tweak some option to have it works very smooth). Almost never crashes during emulation, and very,very good one. There is video to show fpse in action. Through, should to note, that on video i not have that "tweaked option" for Tekken3, and it looks slow (just not found time to make new and proper one).

As for PS2/3 i think there is for first no emulators on os4, and for second they will slow like hell imho :)

MAME - XMAME Or just type "mame" on os4depot, there is a lot of mame-related stuff. You can easyly plays in all those MetalSlugs and other top-hits of mames. Through, of course, the very latest mames console with ubercool 3d will be slow. There is video which show xmame in action

x86/dos - DOSBOX only. Through, as we not have ppc-jit in it, it works a bit slow. For example Mortak Kombat 3 in dosbox on my 1gz/peg2 , works a bit jerky. If only i set skip frames then its ok, but not expect some heavy stuff from.

Nintendo64 - there is no good emulator for. AmiDog do some attempts to port some opensource emulator, but it lucks of sounds, buggy, and abandoned in end. Sure, n64 have some good games and have decent emulator will be nice.

c64 - as i never have c64, i can't point out what emulators are best one on os4, but i sure there is some emulator present.

Btw, as i note, you can also found some "interpretators" of wellknown games on aos4 native. One of them , its ScummVM , which give you ability to plain in FullThrotthe, Sam&Max and 7guest (i.e. some top-hits of past from x86). There is video which show scummvm in action.

Also there is some interpretator called GemRB, port of which done by AfxGroup. With it you can play in some seriosly good #OOPS# like Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale.

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for all variety of commodore 8-bit systems, including the C64, there is the incomparable VICE. it works rather well, even on our lowly SAMs.

for the playstation, you'll want FPSE. the version on os4depot.net is a bit stale. more recent versions can be found on the author's web site. the same author also has an old N64 emulator, but as @kas1e said, it's not very performant and it tends to crash more often than actually run anything. YMMV.

chris young has been responsible for the OS4 version of the FUSE emulator for the spectrum series. you can find links to the latest version on his site or download directly from aminet. there are also utilities available on os4depot as well.

for DOS systems there really is only DOSbox. @Corto tends to keep the OS4 version up-to-date with the project source tree. you can find the latest version on os4depot. don't expect too much on your SAM -- for example, i wouldn't try running doom or anything. but older DOS games work well.

we have an older version of MAME, but it works well. you'll want to pick up the port itself as well as the third-party GUI. steffen has rejoined the amiga community of late now that the X1000 is shipping, so hopefully active development will pick back up again.

there are also other great emulators out there, including ones for the original NES, the SNES, various apple2 systems (including the IIgs), the atari 8-bit systems, the atari ST series, the SAM coupe, the amstrads, etc., etc., etc. although my x64 machines would make more sense, i tend to run a bunch of emulators on my SAM since it's where i keep all my 'fun' stuff. have fun, and let us know what else you need!

-- eliyahu

@kas1e and eliyahu

Thanks, I'll look into these.

re: backup

http://www.onyxsoft.se/tutorial_backup.html

(not tried myself yet, I usually just do the copy+paste with DOpus)
Also, most 68k apps should work: http://aminet.net/search?query=backup

There is also Oricutron for Oric emulation.