Any Amiga experts out there?

[necronom]

HD is backwardly compatible with DD. It's more than the Amiga uses clever formatting tricks to get 880k instead of 720k out of a DD disk and it's stuff PC drives simply aren't capable of without serious poking.

Plus the Amiga drives are intelligent. They tell the Amiga that a disk is in the drive. PCs just hammer the drive and try to read thin air if the isn't a disk in

[default_user]

Is there any difference between the Amiga 500 and 600/1200 internal drives? There is one of each on sale on eBay right now, ending in a few hours. It looks like the 600/1200 drive is going to be expensive so if the 500 drive is compatible...

[stigodump]

Well it IS compatible and WILL work. However you can't put the casing back together again coz the drive won't fit.

I had to check coz I knew there was something that prevented you from using an A500 drive in an A1200 even though it IS compatible.

[default_user]

Cheers Stig. It doesn't matter about that because my 1200 is in a tower case. So I can bid in confidence then?

[stigodump]

You may find this site usefull.

http://www.amigahistory.co.uk/

Absolutely tons of useful info.

Go to the technical page and you'll find tons of stuff. If you scroll down there's loads of FAQ's. The first one called "Answers and Questions" being all technical questions is where the answer to your question was. You may find other answers there too.

Good site that I use all the time.

[stigodump]

Cheers Stig. It doesn't matter about that because my 1200 is in a tower case. So I can bid in confidence then?

In that case you're well away.

[stigodump]

Well providing it fits in a tower. It should do but I don't know.

[default_user]

Thanks again Stig, that is an awesome site. Hopefully I shouldn't ever have to ask stupid questions on this forum again!

[default_user]

Damn and blast! I was outbid on both of them. Stupid prices, just stupid.

[default_user]

No sooner had I lost the auction I found two more for sale. At half the price! Hooray for me!

[stigodump]

Nice one!

[default_user]

Thanks to Koopa (cheers mate ) I now have a working internal drive for my 1200 tower. For info, with some external drives you can just take the drive mechanism out of the case and plug it straight into the Amigas internal bay. They're not all like this however. Some have a different connector and you can't tell until you take it apart. I know this because I also bought an external drive on eBay (it was dirt cheap so I thought, 'why not?') to try out. The connector on the back of the drive mechanism of this one was much smaller than the standard drive. Anyway, I'm now in the position of having a working and usable tower system, although the case itself is very tatty.

Now I have a couple of other questions:

1. In the process of my attempts to get the drive installed and working I damaged my beloved mint copy of Alien Breed - Tower Assault (aaaaarrrrrrghhhh, much wailing and gnashing of teeth, and a not inconsiderable amount of swearing). The Alien Breed 2D series of games is one of my favourite Amiga games. As I have the original I believe I'm entitled to have a back-up copy for my own personal use for just such an occasion as this. Unfortunately, I don't have a back-up copy. So is there a kind soul out there who'd be willing to copy theirs and send me it for a small consideration?

2. The Amiga tower system came equipped with a Zorro expansion board. This is something I'm not familiar with and have been unsuccessful in my attempts to find information regarding it on the net. I can find plenty of sites that mention it, and pictures, but what I really need is an instruction manual that tells me what all the slots on it are for and what I can do with it. Does anyone here have any info?