Amiga on the Raspberry Pi Part 3b: Disk Mimic

Coming at you all the way from 2021 comes a new piece of software for Workbench 1.3 that replicates one of the promised features of the new Workbench 3.2: native support for mounting ADF files from within the Amiga environment. Sure, in the context of an emulator like Amiberry that has mounting of ADF files just a click of the F12 key away, this might not be an earth shattering new feature. But part of the fun of owning an Amiga is the ability to tinker with new technologies to enhance and extend the platform. So, lets check this thing out in our freshly minted A500 setup. The timing couldn't be more perfect. Download it here.

Move the DiskMimic.lha file to your /home/pi/Amiberry/Transfer folder, and then start up Amiberry and LOAD and START the Amiga 500 configuration. Open a WShell and type the following commands:

ram:
lha x transfer:diskmimic

This is the implicit CD part of WShell in effect - we could change to the RAM: volume by just typing its name alone. Once the archive is expanded, You can open RAM DISK in the Workbench and see a drawer for DiskMimic there. Open the drawer, and double-click the Install-DiskMimic icon. This will put all necessary commands, libraries, and fonts into their correct locations, and install mounting commands into the user-startup file. (The installer is smart enough to detect the presence of the user-startup and modifies that file instead of the startup-sequence file. A very nice touch!) Copy the DiskMimic.doc file to your SYS:Documentation folder for future reference:

copy ram:DiskMimic/DiskMimic.doc#? TO SYS:Documentation

One last thing to do before we take this thing for a test-drive. In preparation for the following tutorial, I have been gathering some Amiga software from various places on the Internet, and placing them in the /home/pi/Amiberry/adf folder. Lets add this folder to the Amiga 500 volume list so that we can access it directly inside of the Amiga environment. Hit F12, go to the Hard drives/CD section, click Add Directory, and set it up like so:

Save the Configuration, and then reboot your Amiga to complete the installation (Reset in the Amiberry GUI).

DiskMimic can be found in the SYS:System folder in Workbench. Double-clicking on it will open up an interface with two disk devices: DI0 and DI1. Clicking on either of these will open up a file requester where you can navigate to, and open any ADF file on the system. This is a screenshot of me mounting the disk for Scenery Animator 2.0.

Once I hit OK, the disk was mounted on Workbench just as if I had inserted a floppy disk, and I was able to successfully run the Installer and then the program right off the mounted ADF file, natively within the Amiga environment. This is a great piece of new software for one of the Amiga's oldest versions of its operating system.

A shout out and a big thank you to Amiga Love for bringing this utility to everyone's attention. Give him a follow.