The Workbench is the Amiga's User Interface to manage files and start application programs and from v1.0 to 3.1 it is supplied on Floppy disk which must be converted to ADF disk images to be used with Winuae. A larger set Workbenchs (upto 3.9) can be found on the Amiga Forever CD in D:\Emulation\shared\ADF and a full Workbench directory hard disk set up in D:\Emulation\shared\dir. Standalone Workbench or AmigaOS 3.9 (68k) or 4.1 (PPC) CD can be purchased from any good Amiga dealer (for example AmigaKit and can be read directly on a PC as a Read Only Directory based Hard Disk on Winuae.Workbench 3.x is also supplied with the Amiga Forever download or CD/DVD versions.
If you have a modern browser (such as Netsurf , Odyssey or even IBrowse), you can use something like DropBox , OneDrive or iCloud to exchange files between the systems. 2. Where can I purchase Kickstart and Workbench disks? Kickstart ROMs and Workbench are COPYRIGHT of Amiga Inc and it is ILLEGAL to distribute them or download them from unauthorised sites. For real Workbench disks, you can get replacement disks from Amigakit from 11.75.
Amiga Workbench 1.3 Adf Download
If you have two floppy drives and the new Disk2FDI program, you can read Amiga Disks in one drive and write it to FDI format on another disk in the other drive, the FDI files are compatible with the latest Winuae program. To read PC formatted disks on the Amiga you can use CrossDos (supplied with Workbench 2.1, 3.0 or 3.1 or higher). Amiga disks drives support Double Density 720K disks, you need a High Density drive for 1.44Mb disks. Refer to device names PC0: or PC1: for PC disks. If using Workbench 1.3 or 2.0 download MSH (MessyDos) from Aminet for similar features. For 1.44MB disks you need to have a high density drive using the Catweasel interface (for A1200). To format disks as 720K on Amiga use Format Drive PC0: (or PC1:) Name Disk1. To use 1440K disks, edit or copy PC0 DosDriver to a new file and change the number of sectors per track from 9 to 18. To format disks in Windows use Format A: /N:9 /T:80 (for old OS use Format A: /F:720).
Some games come with a HD installer script included on the game disk, if the disk is visible on the Workbench. Other games will require loading from a image copied to the HD and run using a special install file using the WHDLoad system. You can download WHDLoad from Aminet (see dev/misc and game/patch) or the WHDLoad home page. A FAQ about WHDLoad is at the Wki Abime website.
Well I am glad I am not the only one. Yes some people in here need to get alife, and stop shagging plus sized ladies (and admitting it too!) HeheIf it is so wrong to download 15-20 year old computer software (Amiga, C64,Atari 800) why are so many sites available online? A lot of them even sayit is freeware and legal. (as you know my opinion, it makes complete senseto me) So if that is breaking the law then so be it. Maybe Big FiveSoftware, Datasoft and Psygnosis can start taking people to court for copyright infringement...Tim
Now you can download commodore amiga workbench from version Amiga Workbench 1.0 (30.xxx) (Commodore) (1985) to version Workbench v3.1 rev 40.42 (1996)
We had in our possession a broken Commodore Amiga A500 with workbench/kickstart 1.3 roms installed. The amiga was one of my favourite computers from my childhood so I was looking forward to restoring and possibly completing some minor upgrades and making a dream amiga. The first thing we needed to do was repair the Amiga itself and then look at the memory upgrade. As a personal requirement we wanted to make an external floppy interface/drive to have 2 floppy drives (so the amiga can can play jesus on e's by lsd.. long story).
The first thing to be done was to investigate the condition of the memory expansion installed. We opened the trapdoor on the bottom of the case, we removed the memory expansion, it was actually quite a good one that upgraded the amiga's 512k or ram to 2mb which for this computer was a dream amount in its day. However on further inspection it was evident that the memory expansion had suffered from the dreaded varta battery leakage and required immediate removal. We de-soldered the offending battery and scrubbed the area affected with a toothbrush, first with distilled white vinegar to remove and neutralise the leaking battery fluid. Following with a good spray and scrub with Isopropyl alcohol to remove any vinegar residue.
After a bit of investigation into Amiga colour error codes there was no reference to a brown screen. We next checked to make sure all the important chips had power such as the 68000, denise, agnus and paula. all power connections where present and seemed to be working, but upon feeling the top of paula and denise chips we noticed they were getting hot and if we tapped the top of the denise chip as powering on the amiga sometimes the screen would vary between a red and green and black as I was a little stuck at this point we reached out to the retro community. A youtuber called gadgetUK164 responded and suggested that it may be one of the I.C. sockets. so we ordered a replacement 68000f12 (a 16mhz version of the amiga processor), a replacement paula, denise all of which where reclaimed parts and we purchased some new 32 Way 2.54mm Turned Pin Single In Line SIL Sockets with 17.8mm legs. We de-soldered the old CPU socket and replaced it with the SIL Sockets then we inserted the newish CPU and first replaced the paula and the amiga powered up !!
We needed to find some way to test the memory chips on the expansion luckily the amiga was a rev 6a it had a fatter agnus chip which supported 1 meg chip ram and it had the empty slots on the board ready for the memory, so we modified the amiga to switch between 1meg and 512k chip ram by cutting through jp2 on the motherboard and adding a switch to select between the options. We then soldered some I.C sockets into the amiga's motherboard. Next we de-soldered all the ram chips from the upgrade board and tried the ram chips 4 at a time and they all passed the diagnostic tests, at the same time we de-soldered and replaced all the capacitors on the the board (electrolytic and ceramic). Next we used a multimeter on continuity mode to start checking all the connections from the expansion port on the memory board and discovered a missing earth, we connected the earth with a blue wire from the memory board isolation switch, then we populated the memory board with sockets and reinserted the chips and tried again. The amiga powered up and registered the 2mb of memory but up on running further diagnostic tests the amiga was reporting memory faults. upon removing the board to continuing checking the connections to the bus we discovered 2 of the chips were missing data connections to the bus, so we fixed these connections with some wire and success the memory board passed the tests full 2mb Ram yay!!! The ram expansion had a built in real time clock so now it was time to put in a battery, had a double cr2032 battery holder so it outputted 6v, We put 1n4148 Diode on the positive line of the battery holder to stop the amiga charging the battery as it would probably overheat is allowed to do so and connected it to the relevant points(red dot + and blue dot -) on the expansion board and we had a working clock.
When the basic amiga and expansion was working we noticed the led on the keyboard caps lock was flashing twice and after so long the keyboard would stop working with the light still flashing twice then a delay of about 2 seconds then the light flashing twice again, upon investigating we found that this was a keyboard ram error message and it usually means a new keyboard controller as the keyboard ram is embedded into the controller, however it seemed to work fine for 5 mins or so then the error would start indicating that the fault was not in the chip itself. we simply replaced the capacitor in the keyboard near the controller chip and this solved the problem.
We started looking at how the amiga external floppy port worked and discovered that the amiga used a slightly different system to a pc on how to read and use floppy disks the first major difference was the motor power was only a pulse and not a constant 5v to power the floppy spinning motor so we would need a flip flop on the motor to power the spinning motor, we found and excellent resource in the amiga system programmers guide which contained a suggested floppy interface but it required an amiga specific drive where we only have a standard 1.44mb PC drive. After more investigation there where 2 main differences between a pc and amiga drive as mentioned before the motor 5v power and the amiga has a disk CHNG and RDY line where as a PC floppy just has the RDY line. After tracking down a 23 pin D male Plug we set about making a floppy controller interface, which after much trial and error with various flip flops we managed to put together a working external pc floppy interface controller, we then designed a PCB for the interface and the gerbers are available free on a pcb website to download. Next we made a temporary case out of an old plastic sign and stuck it together with a hot glue gun. So now we had an amiga A500 with 2mb of ram and an eternal floppy drive.
The IDE emulator was relatively straight forward to build but we had to order some reclaimed 74F00 as we couldn't find any new, (the "f" is the 100mhz iteration of the chip, the "hc" is 25mhz) so we ordered some from a seller in bulgaria. We recycled an IDE connector from an old broken SCSI interface controller, removing the SCSI connector using our hot air gun to heat up the solder side then pulling of the connector with tweezers when hot enough, we then cleaned up the connector and cut it down to size to be soldered into our PCB as out IDE header. We had a generic IDE to compact flash controller that could be connected up a flash card but it required a 5V supply, we use amigapcb.org to track down a 5v point we could solder a pin to the motherboard to get a feed from the amiga, we used pin 1 of RP109 as it was 5VCC point on the amiga (see photo 5) and pin 10 of RP109 which is ground we soldered connectors to these points and connected the red and black wires of a recycled floppy berg connector to power the IDE to FLASH adaptor and split off wires to power the IDE emulator. Now we had to power on the amiga and format and install the relevant software onto the compact flash card. First it is necessary to download the gerbers as the files contain the driver ADF with workbench pre installed. This is where we were stuck as we had no way of writing amiga ADF files to a physical floppy disk hmmm!! 2ff7e9595c
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