User avatar
foggy

Posted Mon Jan 02, 2023 11:42 am

Hi -

I'm a little bit late to the party but glad to be here!

I've been battling a while to try get images of my Amax formatted to a friend so he can write them out to floppies and use them.

Also trying to understand this Amax format. I've imaged the disks with my GWeazel but don't seem to be able use the disks that it writes back out. Amax doesn't like them.

I can mount the Amax disks with CrossMAC and see the contents. I can format a disk with CrossMAC and use it fine within Amax however if I use CrossMAC to copy the files from the system disk to the newly formatted Amax disk, it doesn't boot. Sad Mac. I can otherwise see the files if I boot from the known-good System disk.

All rather weird.

@intric8 - would you be able to share the img2amax utility you mention? Sounds like it would help me greatly!

cheers!

User avatar
intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Mon Jan 02, 2023 11:48 am

I'm not 100% sure I'm following, nor if this will solve your problems. But here you go.

User avatar
foggy

Posted Mon Jan 02, 2023 12:00 pm

Thanks - I'll give it a whirl later.

I'm just trying to understand as much as I can about the format.

Do we know if schematics of the Amax cartridge exist? The pictures I've seen dont look too complex, would be fun to lash something together and try hook up a real Apple drive.

thx


User avatar
foggy

Posted Mon Jan 02, 2023 1:29 pm

awesome! that is super cool!

img2amax quite happily wrote system6 images I dragged down from winworld but same thing when i tried to boot them. Almost immediate sad mac face and F003 code. The only system disk I can boot from is the old 6.0.7 I've had 30 or more years! Same behaviour as I was seeing with my CrossMAC manufactured system disk.

So I unplugged my 030 accelerator. Now it boots further but complains that co-processor isn't installed!!

I'll get there with it but it looks like my Amax might not be behaving.

User avatar
intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Mon Jan 02, 2023 2:00 pm

Are you using an original cartridge? And if so, do you have an original Apple floppy drive?

Or are you doing everything via software and trying to use your Amiga's floppy drive?

User avatar
foggy

Posted Mon Jan 02, 2023 2:08 pm

I don't have a cartridge.

Everything I'm doing is on my A1200 and the cracked A-Max II software.

I thought I had the latest A-Max 2.50 but I note there's a 2.56 in TOSEC .. however when I run it, it says 2.50 and behaves the same.

No matter what I'm doing, I can't get it to boot of any other System disk than the one I (I think) nibble-copied from someone back in the day!

User avatar
intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Mon Jan 02, 2023 2:33 pm

I have 2.56. (But of course!) Chris Brenner gave it to me.

And here that is.

User avatar
intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Mon Jan 02, 2023 2:48 pm

However, the 2.06 crack is actually most likely the best bet for you as it allows you to run A-Max without the cartridge at all. I think 2.56 which I linked to above expects you to have it + the Apple ROMs.

So yeah, you've basically run into the conundrum of A-Max and it's proprietary format.

The honest truth is that you can get A-Max to run as a software-only solution, but even if you had the cartridge and floppy drive the software-only route will only take you part of the way down the field. Some Apple software (like Microsoft Word, or some of their creative programs) really need to be installed to a hard drive to run. If you try and run some of the programs off disk - I kid you not - the Mac will read a tiny shred of the disk, then ask for the System disk. And it'll go through that ridiculous back and forth like 50 times! It makes no sense and will drive you insane. The absolute best way to run it is by installing it to a hard drive, which requires custom drivers for whatever controller you're using.

Which sucks, but that's how it is.

That being said, before I had the hard drive installation I did fire it up via software and actually loaded an Infocom Mac-only game, which was VERY cool to see on my screen.

So...

If you ever get it to load, the question is what software do you have that you can actually run? Without the external Macintosh floppy drive I think it is going to be a challenge.

Since you're on an A1200, it seems like Shapeshifter would be the way to go if you have the horsepower (it even supports RTG). You could run System 7, be in full color - a whole new ballgame.

User avatar
intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Mon Jan 02, 2023 2:52 pm

If you ever decide to build the cartridge, I have the 2 Mac ROM files you'll need to burn should you continue to go that route. Each file is 64K. I can help you source the blank chips, too.





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