Amiga Computing - Commodore Is Awesome

You're undeletable
3 I used to own an A500 computer
with a GVP hard drive. One
of my favourite games was Silent
Service II, which was installed onto a
geed drive partition by the programs
Nen installer program.
Atter about three months with my
4500, I eventually had the opportunity to
e.ay a second hand Al200, which I duly
of course. I then set about transfer-
'trig my programs on my A500's drive to
vas Al200's internal IDE drive using
3uatterbach,
I have now finished Silent Service II
and tried to delete it from my hard drive.
rave managed to delete all the files in
rre Silent Service II drawer but when
ry to delete the drawer itself, I get the
lirrOr message 'Icon in use.'
I know a little about Workbench and
AmigaDOS and realised that there was
Probably an Assign statement in the
6seestartup or startup-sequence scripts.
However, after browsing through these
Two files with a fine toothcomb, I can't for
tie life of me find any Assigns relating to
frie game. How can I get rid of the
damned Silent Service II icon?
G. Whittaker, Sussex
There are a few ways to create
Assigns for Workbench,
besides having them directly
stated in the user-startup or startup.
sequence scripts. One way is to have a
completely separate script file containing
the Assign statements which is
called from either the user-startup or
startup-sequence by an Execute command.
See if you can find any Execute
Commands and check the files they are
calling.
Also, another common method Is to
have a file in the WBStartup drawer.
Anything in here is automatically execuled
when you boot Workbench, and
your game may well have placed a file
in there which is creating the Assigns.
Personal plea
There were several things I wanted to
for my Amiga 1200. Unfortunately, wh
was ready for the Personal Font Ma
update, I was not able to obtain it as it
no longer available. Perhaps there e
someone who has il and no longer has
any interest in it? Can you help?
Mr F Fa'lune, Fife
We failed to turn up a possible source
I for you Mr Fortune, but there may be
someone Out there who can help you.
So, if you have the item in question and
no longer require it, drop us a line and
we'll put you in touch with Mr Fortune.
IlMEI for another bout of
problem ba5hing tourte5q of the
eHtremelq helpful gills fidgE5 —
Fast math
have an unexpended Al200
•z. which is beginning to seem a little
on the slow side since I started playing
flight sims_ I am now looking to increase
the speed at which my Al200 runs and until
I can afford a 68030 accelerator board, I was
wondering whether I can simply add a floating
point unit (FPU) to my Al 200S insides to
speed things up a little.
Is there a simple FPU upgrade I can buy?
I'm quite prepared to do a bit of soldering.
Also, why are there no 68040 accelerators
around for the Al200?
J. Matthews. Gnmsby
For a start, you need to upgrade
your memory. Believe it or not,
merely adding extra Fast RAM to
your Al200 can significantly speed up
some software, particularly flight sims.
This is because Fast RAM is 32-bit memory
independent of Chip RAM and can be
accessed very quickly indeed.
It's not possible to simply fit an FPU to
your Amiga's insides. Currently, the only
way to do so is via a memory upgrade
board which features an FPU socket (of
which there are many), or through
installing a processor upgrade board
such as the many 68030 products
around.
Be patient, save up your dosh and buy
a 68030 upgrade board with FPU slot and
72-pin SIMM slots (preferably two or
more). That way you will solve all your
Al200's speed and memory problems in
one go.
There are no 68040 accelerators
because there are problems in keeping
these powerful chips cool, and in the
extremely small confines of an Al200
there is no room to fit a CPU fan on the
68040. Another problem with fitting a
68040 is that it's big enough without
•
TECHNICAL
AMIGA COMPUTING ADVICE SERVICE
having a fan stuck on top of it. So, It's all
down to a space and heat problem.
I suppose it wouldn't be too much of a
conceptual leap to figure that maybe an
external 68040 upgrade board in some
sort of casing with a lead connecting it to
the Al200's upgrade slot is possible, but
no one has done it yet — presumably due
to the costs involved. I certainly wouldn't
mind a big bad -
040 if any entrepreneurial i n boffin types are out
mthere, y take heed,
l i t t l e
A l 2 0
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1
7
3
I and GVP 85Mb hard drive, which
.
U was installed by the shop I bought it from.
.
a The hard drive is split into three partitions:
.
BWorkbench
(5Mb). Work, (40Mb) and
I
l
Games (40Mb). I also have a Commodore
1942 h monitor and a Star LC24-200 colour
i
a
z
v
z
e
a
o
Memorq manse r
w
d
n
16Mb 1 SIMMs are expensive because they
price for 72-pin SIMM modules. I have a DKB
e
use 2extremely
compact memory chips
l e 1240 '030 accelerator card which has one 72-
d
compared 0 to 8Nb SIMMs. Such memory
I pin SIMM socket. Ideally, I want 16Mb as I am keen on chips are, at
a
0the
moment, more expensive to pro-
hcomputer
graphics. Unfortunately, this would mean I duce. As demand n
/ increases and production
awould
need a single 16Mb SIMM. which is hard to find becomes more A
4
cost effective, we will no doubt
vand
is a lot more expensive then even two 8Mb soon see 16Mb m
SIMMs.
4 prices drop dramatically. and will
e
probably start i
M
drooling over even bigger SIMM
b
Why is il that one 16Mb SIMM is more expensive modules. g
b
e
than two 8MB SIMMs when you are getting the same Such is life in a the fast moving field of computer
f
e
amount of memory in fewer components? Are we being technology. Just 1think
back to when you thought
ripped off?
1Mb was expensive
a
n
2 and opulent before 4Mb and
D. Taylor. Liverpool 8Mb SIMMs appeared.
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Amiga computing w
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MAY 1995
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