Emulation for dummies

[Chris]

OK, first off I want to introduce myself. My name is Chris and I'm from Oregon. I have a ton of footage accidentally taped of the Prevue Channel in 1995. I thought it would be fun to have my own private Prevue Channel where I think up of funny networks and give them fake programming. I'm guessing this is the whole purpose of Prevue Channel emulating is? Forgive me cuz I'm new. Even if that's not the purpose of it, I'm still intrigued by the idea and would like to know how to do this. I'm guessing I'd need an Amiga emulator as well, right? Is this something that requires a whole bunch of programming experience? If so, I only know BASIC and am getting started in C. I have never used an Amiga my entire life (I had a Commodore 64 as a kid and then switched to Windows 3.1 and have been having Microsoft ever since.)

[SchalaAshtear]

First of all, you will need WinUAE (for Windows) or E-UAE (for Macintosh or Linux) and Amiga ROMs (please don't post any here or ask for them =P), and the Prevue Guide ADF image. I used an Amiga 500+ configuration as follows:

Code: Select all

CPU 68000 (68020 might work, haven't tested)
FPU disabled (shouldn't make a difference, I think)
Chipset: ECS Agnus (Full ECS also works, and I think AGA)
Chipset Extra: A500+
PAL/NTSC: NTSC
Genlock connected
Kickstart 2.04 (3.x works, but only when softkicked to 2.04)
At least 1MB of Chip, 8MB Fast, and 512K Slow RAM
DF0 must contain the Prevue ADF on boot
Display: 760x480 no centering

You may also want to have another WinUAE disk/folder handy for PowerPacking data (unfortunately, I don't know of a way to do it on Windows =/), but you can edit the data in the uncompressed curday.dat and nxtday.dat using any text editor or hex editor in an emulated Amiga or on Windows. I made a curday.dat and nxtday.dat featuring the local stations in my area, for example. =)

I think letters and symbols are also allowed in channel numbers, but I haven't extensively tested that yet. Also make sure that the data is correctly formatted (proper amount of 00h characters, etc.) or it'll just get discarded by the Prevue Guide executable =P

[Chris]

What's an ADF image? I tried googling "prevue channel adf image" and it just came back to this site.

[SchalaAshtear]

An ADF image is a disk image of an actual Amiga floppy disk, and is typically either 880KB (DD) or 1760KB (HD).

Here is where you get the Prevue Guide ADF. =P

[tin]

If you're not skint, I can heartily recommend buying Amiga Forever from http://www.amigaforever.com/ to do the emulating. It's somewhat true to say that it's just UAE in a box that you pay for, but the donkey work of setting up the emulator is all done for you and there are a load of nice bonuses that come with it. You also get a legit version of the Amiga ROMs and you'll be supporting a company (well one bloke these days by the looks of it) that has been supporting the Amiga since 1986. Just because of the supporting the company thing I buy a new version pretty much every time it is updated.

Once you have your Amiga up and running (by whatever method), I would put in another high end configuration with a nice screen res and full workbench install (again Amiga Forever already has one set up), and add a new hard drive as a folder on your host OS. Partition and format the drive as DH2:, Unpowerpack all the files from the ADF onto the new hard drive and edit the startup sequence as per viewtopic.php?f=5&t=67&start=10#p535

Then create another UAE configuration as per SchalaAshtear's instructions below, but instead of using the .adf add the hard drive folder you just created as the sole hard drive on the system.

Then you have a system where you are able to edit the files that control what Prevue Guide displays freely with the PC even while the emulator (and PG) is still running. You then probably need to have a look at viewtopic.php?f=5&t=67 to get a steer on how to put your own information into it. It's not all that straightforward at the moment but AriX has done some work on automating it, as have I - I hope to update soon and AriX may well do long before me.

BTW if you haven't already, could you put some of your accidental footage on Youtube? I'd be very interested to see it. <edit> LOL i see you already did

[AriX]

Then you have a system where you are able to edit the files that control what Prevue Guide displays freely with the PC even while the emulator (and PG) is still running. You then probably need to have a look at viewtopic.php?f=5&t=67 to get a steer on how to put your own information into it. It's not all that straightforward at the moment but AriX has done some work on automating it, as have I - I hope to update soon and AriX may well do long before me.

Actually, I haven't really been working on it - I figure it'd be better to rely on P and C commands once we figure them out, since this way is more of a hack. Have you had any luck with those lately?

[tin]

Then you have a system where you are able to edit the files that control what Prevue Guide displays freely with the PC even while the emulator (and PG) is still running. You then probably need to have a look at viewtopic.php?f=5&t=67 to get a steer on how to put your own information into it. It's not all that straightforward at the moment but AriX has done some work on automating it, as have I - I hope to update soon and AriX may well do long before me.

Actually, I haven't really been working on it - I figure it'd be better to rely on P and C commands once we figure them out, since this way is more of a hack. Have you had any luck with those lately?

hehehe, no I've been caught up in editing my own curday.dat instead of getting on with it

[Eduardo]

I don't know if this is the correct place to post this doubt, but since I'm a total dummy I don't see why not...
I'm using 'Amiga Forever' but when I try to boot PREVUE.ADF, it gives me ER012. Any ideas of how can I resolve it? Thanks in advance.

[AriX]

I don't know if this is the correct place to post this doubt, but since I'm a total dummy I don't see why not...
I'm using 'Amiga Forever' but when I try to boot PREVUE.ADF, it gives me ER012. Any ideas of how can I resolve it? Thanks in advance.

Hey Eduardo,

Sounds like you don't have your emulated system set up properly - probably need more Fast RAM. Check here: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=29

[Eduardo]

Hey Eduardo,

Sounds like you don't have your emulated system set up properly - probably need more Fast RAM. Check here: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=29

Thanks, AriX! After a while I figured out how to do it. However, I still have one problem: the date on the Prevue Guide is January 1, 1970. Is there any way I can change the date? Specially since the Prevue wiki says this image contains listings fro Dec 13, 1999.