Classic Workbench 68K

Instructions Multi-Boot File Transfer
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Workbench 3.x setup for ECS 68000 Amigas

4/8 colour screenmode - Normal Icons

Recommended Minimum Hardware:

A500+/A600 - 3.0 ROM - 2MB or more RAM - TVset or TVres Monitor
80MB Hard Drive

Introduction

ClassicWB 68k is essentially a low mem, high performance Workbench designed for those with ECS 68000 Amigas, e.g A500+ and A600. Even though it lacks some features of its bigger brothers, it does not sacrifice any ability to accomplish the most important tasks!

This Workbench already has many useful items installed, including WHDload (unregistered), Jst and various patches (no drive clicking!).

Unfortunately, many WHDload games are designed for machines with more than 2MB of memory. In order to increase your chances of booting a particular WHDload game, try using the MULTIBOOT features by holding down the right or left mouse buttons. One will take you to a Maxmem menu where you can execute games, the other a Bootmenu with more memory available.

Quick rundown of a few features

This is just a quick note to let you know about a few features not obvious.

For instance, actions can be performed on icons by selecting them, right clicking, going to "Actions" and running the relevant option. If you want to view a file or edit it, select the file, right click and choose "Actions -> Edit or View" for example.

This is made possible using "ToolsDaemon". Add whatever you want, be it shell or WB applications, by running the programs prefs editor "ToolPrefs" under the tools menu.

The drawer icon left out on the Workbench (bottom left) can be used to access the files for the Games, Demos and Other list menus. By double clicking the "Add" scripts, WHDLoad titles will be detected automatically if they are in the Games (A-Games:) or Demos (A-Demos:) drawers.

"SmartWin" (Settings -> Components -> SmartWin) will change windows from "simple refresh" to "smart refresh", speeding up performance and screen redraws at the sacrifice of a little memory. The virus scanner, VirusZ III, will think this is a suspicious vector in RAM but you can safely ignore its patch to "OpenWindowTagList ()".

"TTmanager" (System -> Icon Properties) lets you change icon properties quickly and easily via drag and drop.

"Dopus" v412 is included and comes with a powerful configuration. This 68000 version does not feature XAD/XFD support like 416. Essentially, this means in 416 you can double click any archive and browse it just like a directory, but no 68000 version of 416 is available. Please use the "Arc Ext" button to decompress a wide range of archives instead.

"StackAttack" (Settings -> Components -> StackAttack) is a patch that adds a minimum stack to all processes that launch in Workbench. If you are having stability issues, enabling this patch may help stabilize the system. It will require more memory when enabled as each process will receive extra stack, the benefit being decreasing the chance of a stack overflow GURU.

"NewIcons", available under popup menu settings, can be enabled in order to show special icons that are sometimes included with WHDLoad games and certain programs. If you see a dot in place of an Icon, try enabling this option. If you still see a dot, they are probably for OS3.5+ only. Enabling NewIcons will use up more memory.

"UpdateNewIcon" (System -> Update Icons) lets you drag and drop single or multiple icon files into a window for updating without losing their properties. This allows you to keep the Workbench looking good with minimum effort. A separate drawer called "Icons" contains others you may want to use.

"FDcache", listed under the Disk section of the popup menu, silently creates a RAM cache for floppy disks. After its execution, all floppy access will be shadowed into RAM, dramatically increasing read speed on system friendly disks.

"Ami-PC" mounts a virtual PC drive allowing file transfer between these two machines. All you'll need is a 4-way parallel Laplink cable (for best performance) or a serial cable and the software PC2AM308.lha. This software is free on aminet and includes the necessary PC software to communicate with the "Ami-PC" option.

"Hard Drive ENV" (Settings -> Components -> Hard Drive ENV) allows the ENV: folder to be moved from the RAM: disk (default) to the hard drive. If a large number of files build up in this folder, then significant amounts of memory can be recovered by changing to hard drive ENV: access.

OK, enjoy! Just add your fav Apps, Games, Demos and Mods!