FAQS! FACTS! FAX! 039 (31/12/96)

ADIOS AMIGA?

Five Christmas’s ago I was persuaded to buy an Amiga 500 for my children, but like many others I’ve since replaced it with a PC (Compaq 7320), which the whole family uses. I’m left with a large amount of Amiga software, which the children  would like to continue to use. Are there any software packages that will allow Amiga programs to run on the PC?

J. E. G. K., Brigg

A

PC emulator software for the Amiga is fairly thin on the ground, in fact we’re only aware of one, called UAE, which started out as the ‘Unix Amiga Emulator’. However, more fundamental problems exist. Your PC will not be able to read Amiga formatted discs; the only way to load software is to use a serial cable link with an Amiga. Even if you manage to do that it’s unlikely you’ll be able to legally obtain the necessary copyright ROM image files, required by the emulator. If you’re really determined to resurrect those old games you might like to take a look at the UAE home page, which can be found at http://www.users.informatik

.rwth-aachen.de/~crux/uae.html, or buy a second-hand Amiga.

BARGAIN-BASEMENT BACKUP?

To date I’ve had little reason to backup files larger than could be held on a single floppy disc, but I have recently subscribed to an on-line share service and need to backup details of my portfolio. I was rather surprised to find that this totalled about 24 megabytes, with 2 individual files of 11Mb and 12Mb.

I have an old 286 machine with a 40Mb hard disc, that I replaced about a year ago with a Pentium. Is it possible to link the two machines together, in order to use the 286 as a backup, and if so how would I go about it?

C. A., Bingham

A

There’s various ways of connecting PCs together, using serial or parallel cable connections, so they can exchange files, but the different operating systems and age gap between your two machines makes it quite difficult, without resorting to expensive software or networking solutions. You could try the ‘Direct Cable Connection’ feature in the Accessories menu on Windows 95, though this can be quite tricky to set up and use. There’s handy utility on MS DOS 6 called Interlink, which works quite well, but you might have trouble getting this to run on the Pentium machine.

In the end you’re probably better off with a conventional backup system; in any case, it sounds as though you would soon run out of room on your old 286. Currently the cheapest high capacity backup solution is the Danmere Backer, which can download more than 1.5 gigabytes of data onto a standard VHS cassette. The interface card and software are reasonably easy to install and it only costs around £40. High capacity removable disc systems, like the Iomega Zip are also relatively inexpensive, a Zip drive and 100Mb capacity disc currently sell for around £120.

MORE ROOM

I am fast running out of room on my Apple Performa 5200. I’m loath to delete any more programmes or files, so how do I go about adding a second hard disk drive?

A. L.O.

A

It’s possibly fortunate that the Performa 5200 doesn’t have any space inside the case for a second internal disc drive. They also have a reputation for being difficult to set up, and are probably best left to authorised engineers. On the other hand external drives are very easy to install; they’re about 20% more expensive than internal drives of equivalent capacity, but by the time you take into account the cost of having the drive fitted, there’s probably not a lot in it.