The HELP pages are dedicated to setting up A-Max on an Amiga System, and the details, tricks, tips, and quirks of A-Max.
Please also see TEST, History (features listed), and USER pages.
Go back to the A-Max Home Page A-Max General Help This page. A-Max 1.0 Specific Help This page. A-Max 2.0 Specific Help This page. A-Max 2.5 Specific Help This page. A-Max Tips; 1, II, 2.5 This page. A-Max IV Specific HELP Page
Contents: General: ROMs A-Max & MAC OS A-Max Floppy Drives Mac Filesystems A-Max SCSI/CD Virus Scanners / Other Resources A-Max Tips; 1, II, 2.5 This page. ---- General FAQ ---- About A-Max and Mac ROMs 1. Can I use 64K Mac ROMs? If you are using the 64K ROM, your choice of system disks is further limited because the new Apple system disks require the 128K (or higher) ROMs. System 4.1 and above are not compatible with the 64K ROMs. System 3.2 is our recommended system version for the 64K ROM. In general, you should never mix Finder and System file versions; always keep them together as they come. However, Finder 5.4 and System 3.2 work well together, and will let you use the Finder Shutdown command. Not usable on A-Max 2.5 or A-Max IV. 2. Can I use 256K+ ROMs with A-Max? (NO! Never! 128K only - ALL Versions!) Note: A-Max has software patch to modify/upgrade ROMs in Amiga RAM) Mac OS 1. Where can I get MAC system disks ( CD-ROM:CU Amiga CD3, etc...) I have obtained systems 6.0.3, 6.0.5, 6.0.8, and 7.0.1 from Apple euro FTP sites. I have original 6.0.0 and 6.0.2 system disks, and other Apple originals that have the System & Finder on them. I will have to look into if I can distribute them...(BBS, etc) ftp.support.apple.com, directory /pub/apple_sw_updates/US/Macintosh/System Software/System 7.0.1/ /pub/apple_sw_updates/US/Macintosh/System Software/OLD System???/ ftp.info.euro.apple.com, directory /Apple.Support.Area/Apple.Software.Updates/US/Macintosh/System/ /Apple.Support.Area/Apple.Software.Updates/US/Macintosh/System/ 2. I had problems making system 7 disks from images. I was not yet been able to create proper system 7 disks 1, 6, and 8. There is a disk size problem with the filesystems. See A-MAX TEST page. Try using a real Mac or A-Max 2.5 to create system disks...(Not SS/A-Max IV) unless you have CrossMac or MaxDOS and can format a 779K floppy. 3. Which Mac OS for which A-Max? 1.0 Readysoft tested to 6.0.2 (6.0.3 available from Apple FTP.) I tested to 6.0.3 successfully. 2.0 Readysoft tested to 6.0.5 (6.0.5 available from Apple FTP.) I tested to 6.0.8 successfully. OS7 Unknown. 2.5 Readysoft tested to 7.0 (6.0.8, 7.0.1 OS from Apple FTP.) (Systen 6.0.8 uses OS 7 compatble Printing, 6.0.7 uses OS 6 type. I would recommend 6.0.8 or 7.1. See FTP site for 603,605,608,701. 4.0+ Readysoft tested to 7.1 which they recommended. System 7 only - 7.0 to 7.5.x? (System 7.1 Recommend; older is faster) I have heard rumors of OS 6 on A-Max IV, but have never been able to actually do it myself. A-Max IV "Does not support System 6". If you can hack around it, send details...I would love to do it. That would solve my .amhd driver problem. Floppies: 1. Can I read MAC double (low) density disks in my Amiga's drive? (Not without an A-Max Plus Board installed & hooked up & A-Max II/IV) Mac low density drives have a variable speed motor - Amigas do not. Unless someone wants to, and can, write a very clever timing-read routine to make the amiga drive read Mac to Amiga "Equivalent" speed ratios. Otherwise only the "first speed" region will be readable. It appears Cybercube Research did it when they created the A-Max Plus Board! (see your A-Max documentation on Amiga-Mac File Transfer) 2. Is there a way to directly read MAC double density disks from my Amiga? (Yes) 1. With A-Max external Floppy port cartrige 2. Amia external module (Early Emplant) 2. Sybil external Module. Also a REAL Mac compatable floppy is required for the above options. (Has DB-19 male connector) 4. With an A-Max Plus board properly installed. 3. Can I read MAC High density disks in my Amiga's 800K drive? (No) 4. Can I read MAC High density disks in my Amiga's 1.76/HD drive? (Yes/Sometimes) ?There may be compatibility problems with SOME Amiga HD floppy drives? I do not know in which A-Max version this feature was added. From what I have read the DELL drive and C= 1.76 should work too. If you have one - Please report. You'll have to use A-Max 2.5/IV. 5. Are A-Max and Shapeshifter Floppies compatible? I have noticed my Shapeshifter Floppies format 705K free (720K disk - check if your 720K floppies is ticked in SS options) this may vary with your mfm.device driver & settings. Both A-Max IV and SS use it. A-Max pre 4.0 Formats 800K, leaving 779K free to the Mac....A-Max IV / SS depend on your MFM.DEVICE driver. You should be able to read either A-Max or Shapeshifter disks on both emulators in DF0: if you have the drivers & settings right. (I can) Filesystem FDD / HDD / CD-Rom 1. What Mac Filesystems are there for SCSI and CD-ROM? - CrossMac & MaxDOS were products sold to allow reading & writin to MAC media by an Amiga, and could probably be used for emulators w/ CD-Roms. - AsimCDFS - Commercial CD Filesystem Lets Amiga read Mac CD's & more. - AmiCDFS for CD will read MAC HFS but it has not yet been useful for my emulators on my old ShinaKen CCS SCSI-1 standard 1x CD-Rom drive. Should do much better on SCSI-2 standard drives. - There are also CD-ROM drivers at the above APPLE sites, or try empcd that comes with Shapeshifter nowadays or on Aminet. 2. What are CrossMac and MaxDOS? - Packages that allow you to use a Mac/A-Max Filesystem with Amiga Filesystem. It allows you to do things like copy files to and from Amiga and Mac formatted partitions, Mac and Amiga SCSI and hard drives, Mac & A-Max floppies, etc. This is not required for the A-Max emulation itself, but for ease of transferring files from the Amiga to the Mac partitions, etc. CrossMac has a few more goodies, but both are reported to work plenty well. I personally use the Mac-handler in Shapeshifter and don't get to see all the pretty icons. CrossMac MaxDOS 2.0 / 2.5 Consultron Media4 8959 Ridge Rd 2800 University Ave Suite h1b-101 Plymouth, MI 48170 USA West Des Moines, IA, 50266 USA (313) 459-7271 (515) 225-7409 Tell them you saw it on the A-Max WWW Home Page! See The Emulation Rambler, Amiga Report # 232 for CrossMac vs. MaxDOS 2.0 See The Emulation Rambler, Amiga Report # 313 about MaxDOS 2.5 update. Click HERE for CrossMac vs MaxDOS 2.0 details. Click HERE for MaxDOS 2.5 update details. CrossMac Consultron DL CrossMacDemo MaxDOS Media4 DL MaxDos 2.5 Demo The demo of Cross-Mac on Aminet is read-only, and uses the floppy module. I don't know about A-Max board + Floppy compatibility. Good for copying icons! :-) The demo of MaxDOS 2.5 is also available. (see above) NOTE: If clicking does not work, SHIFT-CLICK. NOTE: If anyone has either package they want to unload fairly cheap, let me know. I'll give them a whirl! 3. SCSI Probe is a VERY useful Utility for mounting Mac ZIPs! Other SCSI Hard-drives may also work if recognised on the SCSI Bus. In the USA you can probably get Mac Formatted ZIPs at Wal-Mart! I will be looking into SCSI a bit more later... 4. GVP SCSI Driver: The GVP SCSI driver ( "gvpscsi.amhd" ) requires version 3.0 or greater of the GVP EPROM. Contact GVP directly at (215) 337 8770 for further details. (Phone probably invalid) ---- Misc. ---- 1. What Mac Virus scanners are available? Disinfectant FREEWARE (3.6 was the latest when I looked) Gatekeeper - Norton has one. SAM (4.5 was the latest when I looked) Virex (5.7 was the latest when I looked) McAfee Intivirus. Dr Solomon's AV toolkit Other Useful utilities: NortonUtils ConflictCatcher3 RamDoubler SpeedDoubler 2. What other Resources are there? 1. Online A-Max user manuals! 2. A-Max IV Article in The Computer Paper, May 1994 3. comp.sys.amiga.emulations usenet internet newsgroup 4. Other A-Max / Shapeshifter / Emplant users. 5. Shapeshifter / Emplant owner's guides. 6. E-mail me. I'll get to it when I can - I'm getting busier at the the moment. If you get no response, e-mail again in 2 weeks. 7. E-mail me if you have A-Max hardware and need text manuals. 8. The October 89 Issue of Amiga World has an article on A-Max 1.0 * General Tips * 1. A-Max and A-Max II will show credits by clicking on the A-Max Logo. Cool! :-) 2. A-Max 1.0 will let you change options between Mac reboots - right mouse! 3. Hit F1 to enable RAM disk in A-Max or A-Max II! It is also bootable! Format it, copy system & finder, select Shut Down Finder 5.4+ only or use A-Max shut down command, eject all disks, click RESTART, and hit F1. 4. All versions before 4.0 TAKE OVER the whole amiga system. 5. No version of A-Max was designed for A600/A1200; no .amhd :-( (Cash waiting) 6. DMS (Diskmasher) will not work on A-Max or MAC formatted floppies! 7. Readysoft sold a Floppy Extender at one time for $24.95 + $4 shipping. They also sold a MIDI cable seprately - I'm looking into this... I am capable of reproducing them. (MIDI if I get specs) 8. The plus card can be installed in any slot. 9. The cartridge can be plugged into the back of an Amiga Floppy drive only if there is a power pin is passed through & if it's not DF3. 10. Plugging the cartridge in takes the DFx of the slot it's plugged into. (500=DF1, 2000 2FDD = DF2) However, it is configured as Mac Drive 1 (External drive) 11. RAM boards are recommended to be placed lower than IO or bridgeboard cards for better compatability. (see docs?) 12. Can I use a digitizer? Parallel port input is not supported. 13. Use Multifinder for better compatability if you have no MMU. 14. The Interrupt / Programmer's Key is Shift-ESC. ---- A-Max 1.0 FAQ ---- 1. What Amigas are supported by A-Max 1.0? A500 A1000 and A2000 are the only ones the Mac clock will work properly. A-Max was designed for A500, A1000, and A2000. Keep in mind this is a 68000 8Mhz emulation. See the next question for details on setting up 1.0 on your Amiga. 2. How Can I Get A-Max 1.0 to work on my Amiga? You are emulating an 8Mhz 68000, Maximum 8MB RAM. Without a Hard Drive or CPU Caches. 1. Early Mac OS. Pre OS 6.0.4 mandatory. 2. NO AGA!! Set Amiga Bootup for ECS/OCS, use DEGRADER or KillAGA etc... 3. If in doubt, turn off CPU Caches. 4. Allocate 8 MB or less to the Mac's RAM. I don't care how. 5. It's much harder if you have more than 8MB RAM 6. Read the docs. Irregardless, choose Interlaced & MAC-MAC for the screen prefs initially until you get the emulator to boot - at least it won't trash the screen as bad. Avoid A-Max ECS settings unless you know what you're doing. RTD. This was a Workbench 1.3 Bootable Emulation, but will run from 3.0. I would recommend booting off the A-Max floppy if in doubt. A500 STOCK Should be EZ. A600 Total breeze --Interlaced mode recommended A1000 Should be EZ. I don't have one. Remember you can use Kickstart RAM! A1200 STOCK is a breeze...just KILLAGA, or boot ECS/OCS. 020 CPU Cache is OK. A2000 If set as above, try booting off A-Max floppy & Board swappng... A3000 If set as above, try booting off A-Max floppy & Board swappng... A4000 If set as above, try booting off A-Max floppy & Board swappng... KILLAGA, or boot ECS/OCS. I couldn't for the life of me get A-Max 1.0 to work on my A1200 - probably my 030 board...or 16MB RAM. [Yep!] I got a sad mac, trash on the screen, or it froze. Pressing the right mouse button made it try again sometimes. No MMU support, remember? It choked on 16MB! You may experience problems with some "HACKs" or if you have a total of more than 8MB of RAM physically installed. 3. How can I copy files from a Real Mac to my Amiga? There are 5 files on the A-Max 1.0 utility disk, but only 4 are readable in the amiga drive. The fifth is "Disk transfer" which is only readable on a Real mac drive. Use this utility to format 272K "Mini Transfer Disks" These "Mini Transfer disks" can be read by both Amiga and Mac drives!! ?You can also use this program for full disk transfers from A-Max Mac drive to DF0: See the 1.0 Docs or online Docs. 4. What are the other files? File Transfer copies files from A-Max to Amiga DF0: Disk Receiver is used with Disk transfer in receiving Mini Transfer disks from the Disk Transfer program. File Dump sends a file to the serial or printer port. The "Shut Down" program is to shut down A-Max with incompatible pre-OS 5 Mac OS. Some system versions will crash if you use the menu Shut Down option. See the 1.0 Docs for details. (RTD) 5. Does A-Max 1.0 support Hardfiles, partitions, SCSI drives/devices, high density floppies, more than 8 MB RAM under emulation, or digitized sound? No. Read the docs. (Online if you have to) 6. Can I boot it off a hard drive? Yes, if you have A-Max 1.0 and run it stock, all you have to do is copy the A-Max drawer! (Then I recommend running FastA-Max.) If you have a hack, you'll have to dig to find the ROM files and loader files! :-p ---- A-Max II FAQ ---- 1. Why do I want to upgrade? Hard disk & MMU support, playing digitized sound, and better clock drivers for all amiga models are now supported. Also, reliability. Able to run 6.0.4 - 6.0.8 additionally, Macintosh II compatability. 2. Can I run System 7? A-Max 2.0 supports up to 6.0.8... looking into it...OS7 wasn't out then. Not hopeful. 3. What about ECS Workbench 2? A-Max II claims WB 2 and ECS compatability. ECS adds some screen modes. (RTD) 4. Can I still use the External Mac Floppy? Yes, if it's not a BAD HACK !! (I had a bad hack. The ROM loader disabled my external floppy. :-( I ran it without the loader (MacROM 2.0) & I was fine 5. Why isn't my A-Max Hard drive partition recognised? Format a OFS/FFS partition with "AMAX" in it AMAXHDD, AMAX10, etc. This is how you tell A-Max which partition it owns. Make sure it's 'mounted' before starting A-max, or it won't be recognized. ASSIGN won't work - it reads from the mountlist. 6. My A600/A1200/4000 etc. locks up & I get a solid colored screen. Check to see your devs: drawer does not have scsi.amhd. Make an AMAXdevs drawer, and put all the .amhd files in it, and reutilize that A-Max partition you created for your Amiga. A-Max 2.x doesn't support your machine's IDE (virtual SCSI) interface. A600/1200 scsi.device & A-Max scsi.amhd are NOT Compatible!! The scsi.amhd is for a C= A2090/2091 SCSI board. Also, make sure your RAM is properly mounted. A-Max will seek it out. See 2.0+ docs. ---- A-Max 2.5 FAQ ---- 1. What's the difference from 2.0? (A lot) Better Interface, More options, Better SCSI interface, Set RAM disk preferences, Cleaner, and more professional looking, and VERY STABLE! Also, you can use File Transfer to copy files to & from an AmigaDOS partition on your hard drive! 2. Can I run System 7? It has been tested to 7.1. I was successful with 7.0.1. It's just a pain with no hard drive - any work I do will be lost! (My RAM Disk = 8 MB) 3. Can I use an Apple 400K or superdrive? (No. They'll just be ignored)IVS Trumpcard - Disk Manager Mac Software! There was a software package called DiskManager Mac for the IVS TrumpCard. It is a Hardcard. I have a package for this Board, but I
erased the Amiga side disk! If you have an IVS trumpcard and you want the remaining disk or you have this package PLEASE call me!!!!!
