AMIGA CD’s from SPACETAXI

DISK IMAGES of REAL AMIGA DISKS

Firstly, I would like to explain, a REAL Amiga Disk is 880k ( made up of 160 Tracks, 80 Tracks per side, so each track contains 5.5k)

(Note also that Non-Standard Amiga disks exist and may be as large as 902k using 82 tracks per side, but this is very rarely used.

There are several types of Utility used today to produce Disk images of Real Amiga Disks and most of these utilities also allow you to convert the IMAGE back to REAL DISK, I will not mention all of these, I will mention the most common IMAGE TYPES that are created by them.

ADF = Amiga Disk File, this type of Image is always 880k as it is an uncompressed Standard dump of a Real Amiga disk.

ADZ = Amiga Disk Zip, This type of image is compressed as it is created, so it is always smaller than 880k, in fact these ADZ images can be as small as 100k, on average they are half the size of an ADF image.

DMS = Disk Masher system, This type of image is compressed as it is created, so it is always smaller than 880k, in fact these ADZ images can be as small as 100k, on average they are half the size of an ADF image.

Much less common are the following:-

GZ = GZIP, This type of image is compressed.

FDI = Floppy Disk Image, This type of image is always 880k as it is an uncompressed Standard dump of a Real Amiga disk.

HOW TO TRANSFER THE DISK IMAGES BACK TO YOUR AMIGA COMPUTER / REAL AMIGA DISKS

There are three main methods of Transfer:-

(1) By linking and Amiga to a PC using a Parallel Cable and Transferring Disks Directly from the Amiga to the PC.

(2) By using an IMAGING Utility on your Amiga, you First Transfer the Disks contents to an IMAGE file, be it ADF, ADZ, DMS, GZ, etc

You can then Burn these DISK IMAGES onto a standard CD or even a Re-writable CD. At this Point You can use the CD in your PC with an Emulator or simply keep the CD as a backup for use on your Amiga.

You can also use your PC to Burn CD’s full of Amiga DISK IMAGES, that you may download from the Internet, and then simply use these in your Amiga, and Transfer the IMAGES back to real disks.

(3) If your PC is running DOS6.22, WIN95 or WIN98 then you can use your PC’s 3.25”

floppy drive to create ADF & FDI type images using a utility called DISK2FDI.COM

Method (2) is the most common method, as all you need is a standard IDE or SCSI CD rom drive to read the CD’s on an Amiga or PC. And most people have a Burner on their PC these days. Many people also have a Burner on their Amiga too.

AMIGA DISK TRANSFER TOOLS ON THE “SPACETAXI-AMIGA” CD’s !!

On the CD’s You will find several tools that will allow you to RESTORE the Disk Images, back to REAL AMIGA Disk.

You will also find several tools that will allow you to Make your own Disk Images of your REAL AMIGA Disk collection, so that you can backup all your Amiga disks & burn them to CD.

All of these may be found easily on the CD MENU that Auto starts when you place any of the 5 Amiga Games CD’s in your CD ROM Drive on your PC. (or you can look in the directory “REAL AMIGA DISKS 880k”)

To help get you started, I can recommend one tool for each image type :

ADF-Blitzer-v2 This is a very simple, easy & reliable way to CREATE or RESTORE ADF images From AMGA FLOPPY DISK TO HD/CD, or from HD/CD to AMIGA FLOPPY DISK

DMS-GUI This is a very simple, easy & reliable way to CREATE or RESTORE DMS images From AMGA FLOPPY DISK TO HD/CD, or from HD/CD to AMIGA FLOPPY DISK

By The Vortex, 2004