Everything you wanted to know about the Amiga but were afraid to ask!
General
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Q. Can I switch off the power to my Amiga at any time?
A. No! You shouldn't switch off the power supply unit until the disk access light has gone out. This applies to both floppy drives and hard drives. Some games will keep the light on permanently - in this case remove the disk before switching off the power. Always use the switch on the power supply unit, and switch it off at the mains when not in use.
Q. When playing games my Amiga doesn't seem to have sound - why not?
A. The Amiga doesn't have any speakers built-in, instead there is a stereo sound output at the rear: just like with a hi-fi separate CD player. You can buy small battery powered speakers to connect here. Some monitors come with speakers have have leads which plug in here too. If you are
using your Amiga with a Television set and the RF output (or with an external modulator) the sound will come from the TV's speaker. If it doesn't, check the tuning and volume settings of the TV.
Q. What difference does a Computer Monitor make?
A. A dedicated monitor will provide a much better display: generally crisper and sharper. If you have an A1200 or an A4000 and a particular type of monitor known as a multisync or dual scan, you'll be able to display more on-screen at once.
Q. How do I program the Amiga? Is there BASIC built in?
A. There is no language built into the Amiga. Instead you will need to buy a package, such as Blitz Basic, AMOS or HiSoft BASIC.
Kickstart
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Q. What is Kickstart?
A. Each Amiga has a chip called a ROM (Read Only Memory) inside it. This chip contains information the Amiga needs to operate. Amiga 500s come with Kickstart 1.3 or 2.04, Amiga 600's have 2.04 or 2.05 and A1200's and A4000's have Kickstart 3.0. Kickstart 3.1 is now available as an upgrade
to all these machines.
Q. Why don't some older games work on my A1200?
A. Some games make use of quirky routines in the older Kickstarts, and can't work with Kickstart 3. The A1200 also has new graphics chips (called the AGA - or Advanced Graphics Architecture - chipset), and again some games won't work. A few games fail because of the faster processor in
the A1200. If you can't get a game to work, you can try holding down both mouse buttons when you switch on and switching OFF the processor caches and selecting the original chipset from the menus that appear. Sometimes a program such as 'Degrader' (available from any Public Domain library) will work.
Q. How can I change my Kickstart?
A. The best way to change Kickstart is to buy an official upgrade pack. You can get an upgrade to 2.04, but recently version 3.1 has become available. To perform the upgrade you will need to replace the ROM inside the Amiga. This upgrade will be of most use to A500 and A2000 owners.
Memory
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Q. How can I add more memory?
A. The A500, A600 and A1200 have special trapdoor expansion slots. You can buy extra memory on cards which fit into these slots to increase memory. The A600 and A1200 can also use PCMCIA memory cards, although these are both expensive and relatively slow. The A2000 will require a memory expansion board, but the A3000 and A4000 can have memory fitted to the motherboard without an extra card.
Q. What is Chip Ram and Fast Ram?
A. The Amiga has special custom chips for handling the graphics and sound. This chips need access to memory, and when they are operating temporarily block the Motorola central processor unit from accessing it. This is Chip memory. Fast memory is memory which the CPU can access without
interruption, and it works very quickly.
Q. What's the PCMCIA credit card slot for?
A. The PCMCIA slot can be used to add memory, hard drives, CD-ROM interfaces and video digitisers to the A1200.
Disk Drives
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Q. Why are the floppy disks so slow?
A. That's just the way they work!
Q. Why do I need to load Workbench from disk?
A. For totally flexibility the Amiga keeps most of it's operating system on disk, and loads it in when needed. Although it can be very slow when used with a single floppy disk, it works extremely well with a hard disk drive.
Q. What is a hard disk drive?
A. A hard disk drive is an extremely large capacity disk (usually from 20Mb to 2000Mb - a floppy disk holds less than 1Mb) which works extremely quickly. Other than that, it acts like a floppy drive and can be used to store Workbench, Amiga programs, data and some games.
Q. How can I add a hard disk drive?
A. Adding a hard drive to an A500 requires a single clip-on unit that attaches to the expansion port on the left hand side of the machine. These drives are usual make use of the SCSI standard. The A600 and A1200 have IDE interfaces built-in, and hard drives can be fitted internally. It's also possible
to connect hard drives to these computers via the PCMCIA port. The A2000 requires an interface card and drive to be fitted internally. The A3000 has a SCSI interface built-in, and the A4000 has an IDE interface built-in.
Q. What is a CD-ROM drive?
A. A CD-ROM drive is like a disk drive which works with CD-ROM disks. A CD-ROM will hold about 600Mb of data.
Misc
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Q. I have an A1200 - where are the manuals?
A. The A1200 doesn't come with AmigaDOS or AREXX manuals If you need them, you can either buy some third party manuals (the Bruce Smith Books's are book) or get the 3.1 Kickstart upgrade which includes manuals.
Q. What is the Help key for?
A. Most modern application software will offer help when you press it.
Q. How can I make my Amiga go faster?
A. If you have an A1200, buying extra memory and fitting it to the trapdoor will double the speed. All Amiga's use CPUs made by Motorola, and it's is usually possible to buy an upgrade. For example, the A1200 has as 68020 as standard and it's possible to buy a card with a 68030 on it. The
A4000/030 has a 68030, and it's now possible to get a card with a 68040 on it. The processor up from the 68040 (the 68060 - not 68050) should be available by the start of next year.
