Conference hydra::amiga_v1

    Christophe , This is one way to do it. You need and Pc with PCSA or
    Pathworks conneced to your local NET. Then you can set your PC to
    listen to the DECNET. Copy the Files you want from Tape:: to your
    account and down to the PC on 720kb disk.
    
    Use Exchange/net filename.ext Nodename_of_PC::Drive:
    
    ie	Exchange/net FF500.LZH 65234::a:
    
    then use programs like Dos2Dos, CrossDos or Msh to read MS-DOS 720kb
    disk straight on the Amiga.
    
    				Hope this helps...
    					
    
    				Regards from England
    				(But I lived for 10years in Founex near Coppet)
    				Erik Bussink
    

Christophe,

	Must concur with the previous reply especially if you are the go-between
and not a regular Amiga user yourself.  Just use PATHWORKS (aka PCSA) to get the
EASYNET resident files onto your PC at work and send the diskettes to your son
to sort out on his Amiga (probably with CROSSDOS or similar).  

	If you have PATHWORKS set up (and I know many DEC sites don't) this is
amazingly simple (a simple EXCHANGE or COPY command will do).  If PATHWORKS is
not set up in EHQ, then I think you are going to have some problems with this
approach 'cos the PC-aware people that I knew in EHQ have all left.

/Chris.

    dir/title=download or pc, or transfer of Crossdos or messydos etc etc
    
    
    It's all in here!
    
    
    
    Greg

    Assuming you already know how to get files transferred to your PC, and
    you have a 3.5 inch floppy drive on it, you can download files onto a
    standard DOS format 720K diskette.  Your son will need to obtain one of
    the products which allow reading of DOS format disks in the Amiga's
    drive.  CrossDos and Dos2Dos are comercial products, MSH and a demo
    (read-only) version of CrossDos are both available on Fish Disk #382.

    Thanks to all your hints: after all, it looks very easy!
    
    I have started to down-load SW on 720k diskettes as suggested (my
    office PC is on PCSA, so that's a piece of cake... even for me!), and
    we'll try to load it on the AMIGA through DOS2DOS is a few weeks.
    
    I may come back with different questions then!
    
    Again, thanks very much.
    Christophe.

Re .5:

	I started with DOS2DOS.  I sugest that the first thing you get onto
    your Amiga is MSH, especially if you do NOT have a hard disk.

    re -1 
    	I still think Cross Dos is the better option. It is much stronger
    than any of the others regarding utilities,and now it supports a ms-dos
    partition on the amiga hard drive directly.
    							bill

>    re -1 
>    	I still think Cross Dos is the better option. It is much stronger
>    than any of the others regarding utilities,and now it supports a ms-dos
>    partition on the amiga hard drive directly.
>    							bill

Yup. I've been using MSH until now. I needed to move about 70MB of data from
a CDROM to an MSDOS hard disk partition. CrossDos did it fine!

john

Re: .7, .8

Another vote for CrossDOS:

1.  CrossDOS supports special treatment of the .info extension, which allows
    you to use Workbench with your MS/DOS floppy or hard disk partition.

2.  CrossDOS has built in text filters.  MS/DOS uses both carriage return
    and linefeed to end a text line.  AmigaDOS just uses linefeed.  When
    you read a text file from an MS/DOS floppy, you usually have to
    filter the carriage returns out.  With CrossDOS, you can just append
    a "]" character to the filename, and CrossDOS will do the filtering
    for you.  If you are reading the file, it will strip the unneeded
    carriage returns.  If you are writing the file, it will add them in.
    It's a great feature!  I use it all the time.

CrossDOS is worth the $30.

Re last few:

	I don't have CrossDOS, but from what I've heard of it, it's good.
    HOWEVER, DOS2DOS, which I do have, is fairly painful to use if you don't
    have a hard disk.  MSH is a vast improvement over DOS2DOS.  How MSH and
    CrossDOS compare is another question entierly.  If you are going to buy
    a MS-DOS disk reader, get CrossDOS and avoid DOS2DOS.

    re .10:
    However, DOS2DOS has the advantage of being a simple program you 
    run whenever you need to snarf files off a MS-DOS floppy.  For CrossDOS
    and MSH you have to modify your system's configuration.  
    
    For occasional use DOS2DOS is great, but I too have switched to
    CrossDOS for almost daily use.
    
    regards,
    dennis     

Will CrossDos work on AmigaDos 1.2?  I haven't upgraded my system
but would like  to be able to share files with a friend who has a
laser printer...

David

Re: .11

>For CrossDOS and MSH you have to modify your system's configuration.

What Dennis says is true, but in this case modify your system's configuration
means:

	Coping the file handler to l:
	Coping the device driver to devs:
	Adding entries to your mountlist

All three tasks are well documented in the CrossDOS manual.  I personally
don't consider this to be a lot of additional installation work.

> All three tasks are well documented in the CrossDOS manual.  I personally
> don't consider this to be a lot of additional installation work.

In fact, they supply an automated installation procedure. It's as simple
as adding a single line to your startup-sequence (for automatic mounting
at boot) or double clicking an icon. This is for floppies only. Hard disk
partitions require a muontlist entry.

john

I've followed this discussion with interest. Though I haven't as of yet needed
PC-disk access, I'd like the ability- in fact I have a PC-type friend that I
probably *could* exchange some stuff with using this, now that I think of it.
Does anyone know "fer sure" that the version in TAPE::AMIGA:[AMIGA.UTILITIES] is
the latest? I'm presuming, from the dates, that MSH_130.LZH is in fact a later
version than MSH_15.ZOO; the naming doesn't make this clear.

A small digression: is anyone aware of a similar utility for Macintosh disks?
I have no interest in the Amax-external-Macintosh-drive route, but I do have
some use for MSH-type disk access for Mac disks. I *seem* to recall seeing a
description of the Mac disk access protocol (variable rotation speed?) which
made such a thing impossible, but I never underestimate the
(insert dramatic pause, turn up reverb)...

	POWER OF THE NET!!!!

Thanks for any info on both questions.

Cheers,
	Bob

    re -1
    	Mac to Dos will allow you to read,write, format 800k macintosh
    disks. I use this now. You do need a Mac 800k floppy.
    							bill

Re .16:

Bill- is this a product or a PD/Shareware program? In the latter case, is it on
the net? If it's commercial software, who makes it and how much is it?

Thanks again for the assist-

	Bob

    Mac to Dos is a commercial product made bt the same people that do
    QuarterBack, Dos to Dos, and Quarterback tools. They just got absorbed
    by another company so I am not sure about a phone number. The product
    ships in two variations:
    1) you get MAC to DOS(software,and Mac drive adaptor) $99.00
    2) you get MAC to DOS(software,Mac drive adaptor,and an Amiga, Mac
    compatable drive with the driver) not sure($250.00 ++)
    Call the number in any of the mag ads for Quarterback ask about
    MAC to DOS.
    							bill
    ps. don't expect CrossDos quality. This just barely does it's thing. It
    works though. I took some files to a printer on Mac disks and had them
    printed. They need to use "Sendps" to print the files. This comes with
    MAC to DOS but most shops should already have it.
     

Re: .11

If they did their configuration right, you wouldn't _have_ to modify your
system configuration (but I've only done this under 2.0, so...).

Keep a seperate mountlist in the MSH:. It names the handler and driver
as MSH:l/ and MSH:devs/ <names>. You click on icon which does the assign
for you, then does a "mount IBM: from MSH:mountlist" (or whatever). This is
how I deal with the less than monthly need to read a DOS disk.

	<mike

    Yeh I believe MSH 1.3 is NEWER than MSH 1.5
    
    
    Greg
    

    yes, it is. check the dates of the release notes.
    
    					Erik

Re: .20

Evidently, the author of MSH failed to plan ahead and allow for two
digit minor versions.  V1.5 should have been V1.05.

V1.30 is indeed newer.  I've seen some patches for V1.30 in the
FRSOLD::AMIGA_SOURCES conference (note 417).

Kit keypad 7 to add AMIGA_SOURCES to your notebook.