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Thread: Lasershow Designer 400 (Amiga) + Board Licensing

  1. #1
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    Default Lasershow Designer 400 (Amiga) + Board Licensing

    Anyone happen to have install floppies for Lasershow Designer 400 for the Amiga? What about knowledge of it?
    (This is not the same as the Lasershow Designer 1000 program that was later released free.)

    I finally got a sweet Amiga 2000 setup. Fished it off of craigslist. It started out pretty bad, it had living worms in the keyboard. Literally bug leftovers bubbling out between the keys. Battery acid damage on the mainboard, all that stuff. But... it was loaded. Really loaded. From the 030 accelerator to hand drawn video captured nude animations of pornographic Micky Mouse like character on the video playback system (!?). After totally rebuilding both keyboards, cleaning the mainboard (I hope I stopped the damage, but I don't know if it will continue to corrode) and buying / setting up a SCSI2SD board I have a working Amiga with a Zorro II slot.

    Tonight was the night to finally get around to testing the QuadMod16. I brought this to SELEM 2017 but there wasn't hope as the floppies wouldn't read, my Amiga 600 was dead, Brad's A2500 was unstable from similar mainboard battery acid damage. Stars did not align.

    Small moves Ellie, small moves.

    I have a disk image dump of another system with LD400 installed, it was a system with Seaworld written on it but it looks like default install. Zero Shamoo. I copied the Pangolin LD400 files Seaworld system disk image over to my SD card, installed the QM16 and let it rip. After a few back and forth trips copying more libraries and stuff from the Seaworld image to mine, it finally proceeded to act like it was going to run. I do not have the QM16 cards from the Seaworld system.

    It bombs out saying QuadMod16 is not found.

    I am not an Amiga guy, I grew up a MS-DOS kid, then Unix. I followed Amiga an Atari ST at a distance.

    I assume (but could be wrong) that the board is working, but the software is keyed to whatever the pair of QM16s were in the Seaworld Amiga.

    My QM16 came with none other than original install disks, which have the serial number for my board printed on the labels (1354). So I assume the software is bound to the hardware by the inclusion of the board serial on the disk labels.

    But the LD 400 Release 1.45 disks I have don't seem to read. The Amiga can read the workbench and demos and games I have laying around, but these disks while in GREAT physical condition could have been stored near a magnetic source like a speaker or sitting on a hard drive.

    So kind of scratching my head. Going to poke at the configuration directory hoping something is specified in there.

    Any one remember any of this stuff by any chance?

    Anyone have a LD400 install or floppy set?

    :-)

    (Who knows in two years I might make it to the QM2000?)
    (( Yes, I already own Beyond Advanced and 3 x FB3s, I have no idea why I'm screwing with this.))

  2. #2
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    Anything look remotely useful? Please note that I have no idea what I am looking at and these probably have not been touched in at least 15 years... no idea the condition. Many have PANGOLIN MASTER stamped on the back


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    Sincerely,
    Ryan Smith
    ScannerMAX Mechanical Engineer
    ryan {at} scannermax.com

  3. #3
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    Also note that I found this within inches of a couple hundred of some of the most powerful rare earth magnets in existance (neodymium magnets, the largest ones we use at Pangolin) that we use in industrial scanners... so afterthought they may be no good
    Sincerely,
    Ryan Smith
    ScannerMAX Mechanical Engineer
    ryan {at} scannermax.com

  4. #4
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    Hah regarding disks near magnets. The age old idea that a magnet near a disk will erase it in seconds is false for small magnets. Strong magnets and time on the other hand....

    Those look identical to the disks I have!! But yours have no serial numbers which leads me to think maybe the QM16 wasn't locked to the software.

    My disks:
    Lasershow Designer 400 Release 1.45 Serial No 1354
    LDData1/2/3/4/5 Data disk #x same release and info
    LasershowDesigner 400, Update disk release 1.50
    Lasershow Designer 300, Release 1.45 Serial no 1354

    I guess question #1 to solve, is the software locked to the Quadmod16 board. If it is not, then the issue might be with my Amiga setup.

    Archeology is great!

    Thanks for the info as well!

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    I have a friend that had the disk set for his QM16 but no longer had the Amiga as of last year.. I'll ask him this week if he still has the disks. If I remember right you had to edit two startup script text files in the Amiga OS for it to run.

    Steve
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  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by rns0504 View Post
    Anything look remotely useful? Please note that I have no idea what I am looking at and these probably have not been touched in at least 15 years... no idea the condition. Many have PANGOLIN MASTER stamped on the back


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    You should most certainly back those up digitally! Data rot is always a possibility!

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by rns0504 View Post
    Anything look remotely useful? Please note that I have no idea what I am looking at and these probably have not been touched in at least 15 years... no idea the condition. Many have PANGOLIN MASTER stamped on the back


    Click image for larger version. 

Name:	2017-10-27 16.00.45.jpg 
Views:	24 
Size:	2.00 MB 
ID:	53085

    Click image for larger version. 

Name:	2017-10-27 16.00.49.jpg 
Views:	14 
Size:	1.89 MB 
ID:	53086

    Click image for larger version. 

Name:	2017-10-27 16.00.53.jpg 
Views:	14 
Size:	2.05 MB 
ID:	53087

    Click image for larger version. 

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ID:	53088

    Click image for larger version. 

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    Another thing worth consideration is to use a high quality data recovery/preservation disk image reading/writing solution such as Kryoflux. https://www.kryoflux.com/

    I can recommend it as a personal user and was able to read and preserve digital disk images of all my Apple II and IIe 5-1/4 Apple and laser related image, software, and source code floppies. A big worthwhile feature of Kryoflux is being able to also save digital flux stream images that can be used for further data retrieval by experts. The software also employs a number of command switches, one of which used to amplify low flux density block/sectors for reading data that may otherwise be unreadable by a standard floppy controller.

    The Kyroflux controller board is USB based, supported by many OS's and uses standard PC 5-1/4 and/or 3.5" floppy disks drives. There is a highly useful 5-1/4" disk hardware, firmware modification that can be made that allows the reading and simultaneous writing of disk's images of dual-sided floppies...at the same time.
    Last edited by lasermaster1977; 11-03-2017 at 12:28. Reason: grammer clarification
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  8. #8
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    Hello, just an update.

    I was able to image every single disk on an Amiga 2500 to SD card (SCSI2SD) with no errors reported by the OS. I had one of those disk imaging tools (Like the kyroflux) with me but no need.

    I did partially reinstall LD400 on my Amiga 2500 once I got home from SELEM (simply wasn't time at event to get it all done) and it still can't find the QM16. I also tried what should be a master @ SELEM (though not marked) and got similar QUADMOD16 MASTER NOT FOUND error.

    I am going to install LD400 on my Amiga 4000T as soon as I get a chance, just to rule out issues with the mainboard on the A2500. The mainboard had corrosion that I hopefully neutralized from the lithium battery but there is no telling. The 4000T of course is running a later version of AmigaDOS so no idea what effects that would have. I'm not a super Amiga ninja, I grew up on Atari 8bit then DOS PC before moving mostly to UNIX workstations and such.

    Good times, and much much thanks Ryan for helping to preserve this history!
    Modern and Retro laser show hobbyist
    Pangolin QM16, QM32, Beyond Adv, LSX, ADAT, FB3, FB4
    LS Pluto II x 2, custom build x 1
    http://lasershowwiki.757.org for my all encompassing laser show wiki.

  9. #9
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    I really hope you get it working. Keep us informed .

    I was hoping to see it this year
    But it would be nice to see if running next year

    Sorry you haven't found it all yet.
    I had high hopes with you on the stuff that Ryan brought and you imaged.
    We need someone else with an "older" system running

    Quote Originally Posted by telmnstr View Post
    Hello, just an update.

    I was able to image every single disk on an Amiga 2500 to SD card (SCSI2SD) with no errors reported by the OS. I had one of those disk imaging tools (Like the kyroflux) with me but no need.

    I did partially reinstall LD400 on my Amiga 2500 once I got home from SELEM (simply wasn't time at event to get it all done) and it still can't find the QM16. I also tried what should be a master @ SELEM (though not marked) and got similar QUADMOD16 MASTER NOT FOUND error.

    I am going to install LD400 on my Amiga 4000T as soon as I get a chance, just to rule out issues with the mainboard on the A2500. The mainboard had corrosion that I hopefully neutralized from the lithium battery but there is no telling. The 4000T of course is running a later version of AmigaDOS so no idea what effects that would have. I'm not a super Amiga ninja, I grew up on Atari 8bit then DOS PC before moving mostly to UNIX workstations and such.

    Good times, and much much thanks Ryan for helping to preserve this history!

  10. #10
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    interesting side note to a discussion we were having at selem i just looked at my 2 qm16 cards one has a serial with a P at the end and one has a serial with an S at the end but both cards were fully populated they both hve that QFP on the rear of the board ill get pics later
    now i have a 4 hr drive to go work as nys lso for kiss

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