I get mail and see requests on newsgroups now and again for information on getting ADF files for use on the Amiga emulators UAE or Fellow and sometimes even for use on a real Amiga. Here (I hope in plain language) is what you can do to get them.

Getting ADFs
ADFs (Amiga Disk File) are complete dumps of Amiga floppy disks. This is due to the fact that genuine Amiga floppy disks cannot be read by standard PC floppy controllers (the drives are the same, the controllers ain’t!). There are several ways of getting ADFs for use on Fellow or UAE.

1.The Net
This is by far the easiest way (if you have access to the net but then again – how are you reading this?!?!). Simply type into a search engine something like :-

amiga game download .adf

‘Game’ should be replace with the name of the game that you are looking for. This should bring up a number of ‘ADF archives’ containing considerable amounts of Amiga games. See the links page for a few examples.

2.Direct network connection to a real Amiga.
This is possible, usually requiring a null-modem cable and some software on both. I haven't tried this but there is plenty of documentation with the software you use. Search the net for this software. But of course you need a cable.

3.Creating the ADFs using a real Amiga and putting them on the PC
If you have a high density floppy drive on your Amiga then this is quite easy. With UAE comes a program called transdisk which converts the floppy information into a file which can then be saved onto a PC formatted (using Cross DOS on the Amiga) disk and put on the PC. Without a high density drive it gets a bit messy as an 880k image doesn't fit on a 720k floppy without either splitting or if you're lucky, crunching the file.

4.DMS
Very often you will find Amiga magazine CDs which contain DMS files. These are disk images like ADFs that have also been crunched down. You can use either a program called XDMS for the PC that converts the DMS to an ADF or put the DMS into your emulated Amigas virtual HD and decompress it to an ADF.

5.DMS (II)
You can also use DMS on your real Amiga to Crunch the disk and put on the PC for conversion to an ADF. Here's how

(If you have enough memory on your Amiga and no hard drive then copy the disk to RAD first, it's faster)

Crunch the Disk to a file and see if it fits on a PC formatted floppy. If it does then good, that's it

If not then delete that DMS file and try again, this time firstly crunching tracks 0-39 to one file and then tracks 40-79 to another. This uses two floppies for transfer but means that you can use the software on the emulator. Of course the down side is that you now cannot use XDMS to convert to an ADF as you end up with two. So you have to put the two DMS files in the virtual HD of the emulated Amiga and reverse the process to a blank ADF file.

In actual fact, if you're reading this just go for option one as you obviously have Internet access. It's a darn site easier than the others. But of course, the others allow you to put the ADFs back onto your real Amiga for perfect playability. Mail me if you have a problem. Others have!