Could someone please help me run Amiga .LHA files?

[Peter Pears]

I've decided to set up an Amiga emulator and play Amiga-only IF. Apart
from Amiga, the only other systems I haven't been able or willing to
set up are the TRS80, Atari, and suchlike. There are so few games for
those machines, it's hardly worth the bother. I don't even see any
mention of any of the few game available being any good, either.

With the Amiga, it's different. There's a fair number of IF titles.

Now, I've got my hands on Amiga Forever, having before tried UAE for
Windows (running Windows XP, btw). .DMS files worked great in UAE, and
work great in Amiga Forever, and I can even convert them to .RP2,
Amiga Forever's format of choice. So far so good.

But .LHA? That's giving me one big headache. I know it's a compressed
archive, but when I decompress it in Windows I get a bunch of files
that don't help me, none of which I can feed into the emulator. I
managed to convert LHA to RP2, but I get the same result as I did
when, in UAE, I installed the LHA file as a directory - it doesn't
work.

I've stumbled around so much for so long I don't even want to mention
the rest of my experiments. Suffice it to say, I've .LHA files, an
emulator, and the will to play the games! And quite a lot of
ineptitude. :P Could anyone help me, please?

[Hannes Schüller]

Post by Peter Pears
But .LHA? That's giving me one big headache. I know it's a compressed
archive, but when I decompress it in Windows I get a bunch of files
that don't help me, none of which I can feed into the emulator. I
managed to convert LHA to RP2, but I get the same result as I did
when, in UAE, I installed the LHA file as a directory - it doesn't
work.

Most likely, what you've got there is archives to be extracted and
their contents run in a Workbench environment. I.e. you have to set up
a virtual hard drive inside the emulator and install Workbench (the
Amiga's operating system) on it. You can find a guide here:
http://www.abware.net/guide_amigahd.php

Hannes

[David Kinder]

The easiest way to handle this is to unpack the LHA files from within the
Amiga emulator:

1) Download http://m68k.aminet.net/util/arc/lha.run
2) Copy lha.run and the lha files you want to unpack to somewhere so that
they will appear as files in the Amiga emulator
3) Start the emulator
4) Open a Shell within the emulator, then run lha.run to get an LhA executable.
5) Use LhA to unpack the archive with something like "lha e foo.lha".

David

Post by Peter Pears
I've decided to set up an Amiga emulator and play Amiga-only IF. Apart
from Amiga, the only other systems I haven't been able or willing to
set up are the TRS80, Atari, and suchlike. There are so few games for
those machines, it's hardly worth the bother. I don't even see any
mention of any of the few game available being any good, either.
With the Amiga, it's different. There's a fair number of IF titles.
Now, I've got my hands on Amiga Forever, having before tried UAE for
Windows (running Windows XP, btw). .DMS files worked great in UAE, and
work great in Amiga Forever, and I can even convert them to .RP2,
Amiga Forever's format of choice. So far so good.
But .LHA? That's giving me one big headache. I know it's a compressed
archive, but when I decompress it in Windows I get a bunch of files
that don't help me, none of which I can feed into the emulator. I
managed to convert LHA to RP2, but I get the same result as I did
when, in UAE, I installed the LHA file as a directory - it doesn't
work.
I've stumbled around so much for so long I don't even want to mention
the rest of my experiments. Suffice it to say, I've .LHA files, an
emulator, and the will to play the games! And quite a lot of
ineptitude. :P Could anyone help me, please?

[Peter Pears]

Post by David Kinder
The easiest way to handle this is to unpack the LHA files from within the
1) Downloadhttp://m68k.aminet.net/util/arc/lha.run
2) Copy lha.run and the lha files you want to unpack to somewhere so that
they will appear as files in the Amiga emulator
3) Start the emulator
4) Open a Shell within the emulator, then run lha.run to get an LhA executable.
5) Use LhA to unpack the archive with something like "lha e foo.lha".
David

Post by Peter Pears
I've decided to set up an Amiga emulator and play Amiga-only IF. Apart
from Amiga, the only other systems I haven't been able or willing to
set up are the TRS80, Atari, and suchlike. There are so few games for
those machines, it's hardly worth the bother. I don't even see any
mention of any of the few game available being any good, either.
With the Amiga, it's different. There's a fair number of IF titles.
Now, I've got my hands on Amiga Forever, having before tried UAE for
Windows (running Windows XP, btw). .DMS files worked great in UAE, and
work great in Amiga Forever, and I can even convert them to .RP2,
Amiga Forever's format of choice. So far so good.
But .LHA? That's giving me one big headache. I know it's a compressed
archive, but when I decompress it in Windows I get a bunch of files
that don't help me, none of which I can feed into the emulator. I
managed to convert LHA to RP2, but I get the same result as I did
when, in UAE, I installed the LHA file as a directory - it doesn't
work.
I've stumbled around so much for so long I don't even want to mention
the rest of my experiments. Suffice it to say, I've .LHA files, an
emulator, and the will to play the games! And quite a lot of
ineptitude. :P Could anyone help me, please?

Thank you both, you've certainly pointed me in the right direction...
but I still can't quite get it to work.

To be very specific: Using Amiga Forever and the Workbench 3x (because
I couldn't find a way to easily mount a hard drive with workbench
1.3), I mounted C: as WINHD_C. Then, from within the emulated Amiga
and Workbench 3x, I went to Interactive Fiction\Amiga\B\Box, which is
where I have placed the game Box.lha.

I can extract LHA in windows, or I can drag-and-drop in Amiga the file
Box.lha to an icon that says "LhA->RAM", which extracts the LhA to the
RAM disk.

When trying to run "Box", with an icon that proclaims "Box - The
Adventure", I get an error: "Please insert volume BOX in any drive". I
don't know how to get past this, and this happens whether I'm running
the "Box" file in the mounted folder OR running the one I extracted to
the RAM disk in Amiga itself.

With Battlestar, for instance, the problem is quite another. I can't
find any executable file at all.

I wish I could just extract .LHA files normally and repack them all as
DMS and then feed *that* as a bootable disk. <sigh>

[Hannes Schüller]

Post by Peter Pears
When trying to run "Box", with an icon that proclaims "Box - The
Adventure", I get an error: "Please insert volume BOX in any drive". I
don't know how to get past this, and this happens whether I'm running
the "Box" file in the mounted folder OR running the one I extracted to
the RAM disk in Amiga itself.

BOX: is a drive label the game is looking for. Open a command shell and
enter

Assign >NIL: BOX: VOLUME:PATH/TO/BOX

Obviously, you need to adapt the VOLUME part. After that, run the game.
To automise this, you can add the command to your startup sequence
(S:startup-sequence).

Post by Peter Pears
With Battlestar, for instance, the problem is quite another. I can't
find any executable file at all.

By default, Workbench only shows files which have an icon. You can
change that in the right-click menu: window -> show contents -> all
files.

Post by Peter Pears
I wish I could just extract .LHA files normally and repack them all as
DMS and then feed *that* as a bootable disk. <sigh>

You can do that, too. Simply create an empty disk image and unpack the
contents of the archive onto it within the emulator. Of course, in a
case such as the first one, you have to set the disk label correctly.

Hannes

[Peter Pears]

Post by Hannes Schüller

Post by Peter Pears
When trying to run "Box", with an icon that proclaims "Box - The
Adventure", I get an error: "Please insert volume BOX in any drive". I
don't know how to get past this, and this happens whether I'm running
the "Box" file in the mounted folder OR running the one I extracted to
the RAM disk in Amiga itself.

BOX: is a drive label the game is looking for. Open a command shell and
enter
Assign >NIL: BOX: VOLUME:PATH/TO/BOX
Obviously, you need to adapt the VOLUME part. After that, run the game.
To automise this, you can add the command to your startup sequence
(S:startup-sequence).

Post by Peter Pears
With Battlestar, for instance, the problem is quite another. I can't
find any executable file at all.

By default, Workbench only shows files which have an icon. You can
change that in the right-click menu: window -> show contents -> all
files.

Post by Peter Pears
I wish I could just extract .LHA files normally and repack them all as
DMS and then feed *that* as a bootable disk. <sigh>

You can do that, too. Simply create an empty disk image and unpack the
contents of the archive onto it within the emulator. Of course, in a
case such as the first one, you have to set the disk label correctly.
Hannes

Heh. You're clearly experienced in this. I'm sorry to be such a
burden, my questions probably seem self-evident to you.

I like the sound of

Post by Hannes Schüller
You can do that, too. Simply create an empty disk image and unpack the
contents of the archive onto it within the emulator. Of course, in a
case such as the first one, you have to set the disk label correctly.

So you mean it would work, theoretically? I'd love to manage that. I
can't figure out how to create an empty disk image within Workbench
3x, though...

Also, regarding Battlestar - turns out that it *is* showing all files,
and I still don't see an executable. Well, I suppose I'll worry about
that when I can actually get anything running...

[Hannes Schüller]

Post by Peter Pears
I like the sound of

Post by Hannes Schüller
You can do that, too. Simply create an empty disk image and unpack
the contents of the archive onto it within the emulator. Of course,
in a case such as the first one, you have to set the disk label
correctly.

So you mean it would work, theoretically? I'd love to manage that. I
can't figure out how to create an empty disk image within Workbench
3x, though...

That, you will need to do with your emulator or any utility to handle
block devices - in any case, outside the emulated system.
Alternatively, even simply copying an existing disk image, mounting it
within the emulator and formatting it should work, too.

Post by Peter Pears
Also, regarding Battlestar - turns out that it *is* showing all files,
and I still don't see an executable. Well, I suppose I'll worry about
that when I can actually get anything running...

How do you know? Right-click and look at the file info. Nothing is
executable? If so, you probably need to *mark* the right file as
executable ;)

Hannes

[Peter Pears]

Post by Hannes Schüller

Post by Peter Pears
I like the sound of

Post by Hannes Schüller
You can do that, too. Simply create an empty disk image and unpack
the contents of the archive onto it within the emulator. Of course,
in a case such as the first one, you have to set the disk label
correctly.

So you mean it would work, theoretically? I'd love to manage that. I
can't figure out how to create an empty disk image within Workbench
3x, though...

That, you will need to do with your emulator or any utility to handle
block devices - in any case, outside the emulated system.
Alternatively, even simply copying an existing disk image, mounting it
within the emulator and formatting it should work, too.

Post by Peter Pears
Also, regarding Battlestar - turns out that it *is* showing all files,
and I still don't see an executable. Well, I suppose I'll worry about
that when I can actually get anything running...

How do you know? Right-click and look at the file info. Nothing is
executable? If so, you probably need to *mark* the right file as
executable ;)
Hannes

<sigh> I just give up. :P I did try, but I can't figure out how to
open a DMS file within the emulator so I can put files inside (though
I did suceed in formatting a copy of a DMS). In the end, I guess it's
not worth it. I wish there were a simpler method all around, like with
Spectrum and Commodore - double-click and open. :P I suppose Amiga is
just a more complex system.

Thanks for all the help, anyway. Extremely valuable.

[Hannes Schüller]

Post by Peter Pears

Post by Hannes Schüller

Post by Peter Pears
I like the sound of

Post by Hannes Schüller
You can do that, too. Simply create an empty disk image and
unpack the contents of the archive onto it within the emulator.
Of course, in a case such as the first one, you have to set the
disk label correctly.

So you mean it would work, theoretically? I'd love to manage
that. I can't figure out how to create an empty disk image within
Workbench 3x, though...

That, you will need to do with your emulator or any utility to
handle block devices - in any case, outside the emulated system.
Alternatively, even simply copying an existing disk image, mounting
it within the emulator and formatting it should work, too.

Post by Peter Pears
Also, regarding Battlestar - turns out that it *is* showing all
files, and I still don't see an executable. Well, I suppose I'll
worry about that when I can actually get anything running...

How do you know? Right-click and look at the file info. Nothing is
executable? If so, you probably need to *mark* the right file as
executable ;)
Hannes

<sigh> I just give up. :P I did try, but I can't figure out how to
open a DMS file within the emulator so I can put files inside (though
I did suceed in formatting a copy of a DMS). In the end, I guess it's
not worth it. I wish there were a simpler method all around, like with
Spectrum and Commodore - double-click and open. :P I suppose Amiga is
just a more complex system.

There are numerous tools to handle DMS images on Aminet. What you might
prefer, though, is simply using an ADF image which can easily be
created with the emulator and accessed within the emulator like a
regular disk. Well... *if* you want to give it another try some time
later.

Hannes

[Inachu Ikimasho]

Post by Hannes Schüller

Post by Peter Pears
When trying to run "Box", with an icon that proclaims "Box - The
Adventure", I get an error: "Please insert volume BOX in any drive". I
don't know how to get past this, and this happens whether I'm running
the "Box" file in the mounted folder OR running the one I extracted to
the RAM disk in Amiga itself.

BOX: is a drive label the game is looking for. Open a command shell and
enter
Assign >NIL: BOX: VOLUME:PATH/TO/BOX
Obviously, you need to adapt the VOLUME part. After that, run the game.
To automise this, you can add the command to your startup sequence
(S:startup-sequence).

Post by Peter Pears
With Battlestar, for instance, the problem is quite another. I can't
find any executable file at all.

By default, Workbench only shows files which have an icon. You can
change that in the right-click menu: window -> show contents -> all
files.

Post by Peter Pears
I wish I could just extract .LHA files normally and repack them all as
DMS and then feed *that* as a bootable disk. <sigh>

You can do that, too. Simply create an empty disk image and unpack the
contents of the archive onto it within the emulator. Of course, in a
case such as the first one, you have to set the disk label correctly.
Hannes

Using latest Amiga Forever 9 R2 Following all these steps do not work at all.
sad.

[Krister Fundin]

Post by Peter Pears
I can extract LHA in windows, or I can drag-and-drop in Amiga
the file Box.lha to an icon that says "LhA->RAM", which extracts
the LhA to the RAM disk.
When trying to run "Box", with an icon that proclaims "Box - The
Adventure", I get an error: "Please insert volume BOX in any
drive". I don't know how to get past this, and this happens whether
I'm running the "Box" file in the mounted folder OR running the one
I extracted to the RAM disk in Amiga itself.

If you've extracted the files to the RAM disk, then all you should
have to do is to select "Execute command" in the Workbench
menu and type "assign BOX: RAM:", then run the game.

Post by Peter Pears
With Battlestar, for instance, the problem is quite another. I can't
find any executable file at all.

Taking a look at this archive, I can see two executeables for
different CPUs (one with extension .000 and one .020). However,
these UNIXy compilations tend to be difficult to get running. It
would probably be easier to go with the MS-DOS version.

Post by Peter Pears
I wish I could just extract .LHA files normally and repack them all
as DMS and then feed *that* as a bootable disk. <sigh>

You could, but in order to get a disk to boot you need a startup
sequence and stuff, so it takes some extra work.

-- Krister Fundin

[Peter Pears]

I'm either stubborn, an obsessive packrat or a glutton for punishment,
but I'll give it another whack. With the info from everyone who chimed
in, I expect I shall have relatively little trouble...

...and Rootshell, if I do have trouble, count on getting an e-mail
from me. :)

These files screw up my dream of file-associating every IF game I
have, but so what, as long as it's playable. :P

[Peter Pears]

Ok, sorry for the hassle, everybody. As it turns out, I found a site
with most IF games in ADF format. Not to mention another site listing
many more IF games than the ones found in the Archive. So hopefully
I'm done messing with LHA, and I'd offer the link here for anyone else
interested, except that it might be, strictly speaking, illegal, or
maybe abandonware, which is, strictly speaking, illegal. Meh, it's
easy enough to find anyway, but drop me a line if you'd like it.

Againt, thanks for the comments and help. I may not have managed to
run games off the .LHA files, but I learned a bit about Amiga in the
process. Nice to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there. ;)

[Rockersuke Moroboshi]

Post by Peter Pears
Againt, thanks for the comments and help. I may not have managed to
run games off the .LHA files, but I learned a bit about Amiga in the
process. Nice to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there. ;)

Don't worry, Amiga .LHA files are meant to be downloaded, decompressed,
and executed from real Amigas. It's possible, and in fact easier than it
seems, to do that under emulation, but, as you now know, that requires
some file bypassing which is not really that tricky... asuming you have
some experience both with real and emulated Amigas, so it's natural to
get lost when you first land on the process.

Just keep playing those adf based adventures and mess around a bit with
Amiga forever for a while. Sooner than you think you'll know how to
handle lha files (or just any other thing) you download from the net.

Battlestar executables files are battlestart.000 or battlestart.020,
depending on which CPU you are emulating (68000 or 68020). if you are
not sure, 000 is the best bet, as it should work on all processors. Just
select "Show all icons" (you already know how to do that) and double
click on any of them. A dialog box will ask you for parameters, just
click "accept" and off you go. In my setup game crashes the whole system
on quitting, but that seems to be a program related issue, not something
you (or me :-p) have done wrong.
Alternatively, you could open a shell console and type the command
battlestart.000 from there


Btw, Amiga gets 25 year old this 2010!

--

[Rockersuke Moroboshi]

Post by Rockersuke Moroboshi
Alternatively, you could open a shell console and type the command
battlestart.000 from there

Iiicks, just pushed the send button without even finishing the sentence!
^_^' I was going to add that if you don't know how that "shell" thing
works (you'll find it in the 'system' folder) just don't worry about it.
You'll get there soon after having some fun with your emulated Amiga.

--

[RootShell (IFReviews.org)]

Hello Peter... Greatings from Portugal!

What version of Amiga Forever you have? Plus or Premium? I have Plus 2009.

Kind Regards,
RootShell

Post by Peter Pears
I've decided to set up an Amiga emulator and play Amiga-only IF. Apart
from Amiga, the only other systems I haven't been able or willing to
set up are the TRS80, Atari, and suchlike. There are so few games for
those machines, it's hardly worth the bother. I don't even see any
mention of any of the few game available being any good, either.
With the Amiga, it's different. There's a fair number of IF titles.
Now, I've got my hands on Amiga Forever, having before tried UAE for
Windows (running Windows XP, btw). .DMS files worked great in UAE, and
work great in Amiga Forever, and I can even convert them to .RP2,
Amiga Forever's format of choice. So far so good.
But .LHA? That's giving me one big headache. I know it's a compressed
archive, but when I decompress it in Windows I get a bunch of files
that don't help me, none of which I can feed into the emulator. I
managed to convert LHA to RP2, but I get the same result as I did
when, in UAE, I installed the LHA file as a directory - it doesn't
work.
I've stumbled around so much for so long I don't even want to mention
the rest of my experiments. Suffice it to say, I've .LHA files, an
emulator, and the will to play the games! And quite a lot of
ineptitude. :P Could anyone help me, please?

[Dark Star]

Extracting LHA files with Amiga Forever is easy.

Boot to Workbench 3.X

Mount the drive you have the .lha file in. I have an Amiga folder on my
drive that's always mounted, I just had to drag the .lha file into that
folder, on the Window's side of things. Open that folder up under the
emulator and you should see the file, you might have to pull the window down
to get at, or even Reset the emulator.

Once you find the .lha file drag it to the red vice icon, the one that says
LhA -> RAM. After it decompresses open up the Ram Drive and under the LHA
folder will be the contents of the file.

You can drag the folder over to your main drive and access the files, but
for the one game I tried out it wanted to be mounted in DF0: I'm not sure
how to mount a folder as a drive, but this will at least get you access to
those files. I'm sure some of them will work.

Also, all of this can be done through DOpus.

- D

Post by Peter Pears
I've decided to set up an Amiga emulator and play Amiga-only IF. Apart
from Amiga, the only other systems I haven't been able or willing to
set up are the TRS80, Atari, and suchlike. There are so few games for
those machines, it's hardly worth the bother. I don't even see any
mention of any of the few game available being any good, either.
With the Amiga, it's different. There's a fair number of IF titles.
Now, I've got my hands on Amiga Forever, having before tried UAE for
Windows (running Windows XP, btw). .DMS files worked great in UAE, and
work great in Amiga Forever, and I can even convert them to .RP2,
Amiga Forever's format of choice. So far so good.
But .LHA? That's giving me one big headache. I know it's a compressed
archive, but when I decompress it in Windows I get a bunch of files
that don't help me, none of which I can feed into the emulator. I
managed to convert LHA to RP2, but I get the same result as I did
when, in UAE, I installed the LHA file as a directory - it doesn't
work.
I've stumbled around so much for so long I don't even want to mention
the rest of my experiments. Suffice it to say, I've .LHA files, an
emulator, and the will to play the games! And quite a lot of
ineptitude. :P Could anyone help me, please?

[Dark Star]

Hey Peter,

I don't know if you've figured this out yet either, but even though you're
using Amiga Forever, disks are made through WinUAE. Just open up WinUAE
Properties (F12), click on Floppy Disks section, and down by the bottom you
can choose to Create A Standard Disk, 3.5 DD. You can also give it a Label.

Hope that helps with the Amiga, that machine won me over years and years
ago, I still play games on the thing. :)

- D

So you mean it would work, theoretically? I'd love to manage that. I can't
figure out how to create an empty disk image within Workbench 3x,
though...