Well obviously you choose your own tools... but!

If you do go the pt2.x route, you will have the benefit of literally hundreds of most awesome chip modules at your disposal, that you can peek into and learn from the masters.

Octamed 5's synthesis is horrible.
If you want synth, you should use Musicline or AHX. Then again, Musicline needs a beefier computer to run well, and AHX needs KS3+

pff..  chipmods forever.

But I want synth capability which Protracker don't have?

Boooooo!

Protracker 2.3d for life.

I'm learning with octamed 5.04 yay?

Protracker3.15 ugh!

Very bad choice for chipmusic, as it has a lame replay routing that will render some chip tricks useless

If you want to boot right into ProTracker, there's a self-booting ADF here - http://code.google.com/p/minimig/downlo … oTr315.adf

As for other programs, I have no clue!

Oh, nice one on the HD interface. I hope it uses RDB partition format instead of custom, that way you can plug it into a PC and work with it using WinUAE (for easy file transfer for example).

The way I did my selectable startup sequences was by pure AmigaDOS script commands.
What I like about the "press key on boot up" method is that the command works without needing to open a Workbench screen with an AmigaDOS window in it. This, even though it sounds ridiculous, saves a bunch of memory, which is crucial in more limited systems. Also it's fast, opening up a screen takes time and then you have to type or whatever... If you put this really early on, it's very fast to boot.

This is the keypressed util:
http://aminet.net/package/util/batch/KeyPressed

It even includes some examples. Basically yu have to invoke it and analyze its output with a "warn" command, then act accordingly with a bunch of ifs and elses.

You can make "subroutines" in scripts using the commands "lab" and "skip". "lab" defines a subroutine name and "skip" goes to the subroutine you want.

Then again, all this is valid on Kickstart 2.0+, I don't know about 1.3. I think these commands are available but on disk instead of resident in ROM.

If you make an "F-key" type utility like Ilkke recommends, you could do it with keypress, adding a little bootblock screen that reminds you of what to press! it would be hella fast.

Ah I wasn't quite clear. I was in fact referring to my custom requester script there.
I think it uses a scriptable requester exe that might in turn require some libraries or assigns.

...

Actually a bit off-topic but there are many ways to make a nice menu on a floppy.

Some packdisks from back in the day used startup-sequence to assign scripts to F keys and then just use echo command to type the menu into the dos window.
Other less tech-savvy ones just named all the exes 1,2,3 etc and then again printed the 'menu' in the dos window.

Too late, just won a Trumpcard SCSI controller with a 105MB drive in it.  We shall see...
Also, my 500 has 2.0 roms but isn't a 500+, not sure what other upgrades have been done.

Nope. Only loadwb. Nothing else you wrote needs be put on a floppy.

If the script gets comPlicated it might need some stuff,spexially in 1.3 Amigas like the 500.

HDs for A500 are a bit strange... I dont know if i would shell out cash for one, i'd rather invest in an A600 or A1200

OK, this all makes sense and... it made me realize that the commercial software for my sampler is already bootable.  *blush*  LOL
But now that you've explained this to me and I can see an example I understand how to do the same thing for other progs which was the real goal anyway. 

I will be getting an HD (sooner or later) so still interested in the script.

The uber-snazzy script I mentioned earlier is what I used for HD, but in theory it can be put on a floppy, if you can fit several of useful tools on it.
I think it uses some special libraries so I have to look and see exactly what needs to be on the disk, then I will zip it up and share.

Simplest floppy setup

Make a dir in the root of the floppy called "s"  (without quotes of course)
Put a text file in that folder called "startup-sequence" (no file extension)

When you boot a floppy, OS will look for s/startup-sequence and execute whatever is in there.
Startup-sequence is the equivalent of autoexec.bat on ms-dos.

If you want to run protracker, then your startup-sequence will simply be (without quotes):

"pt.exe
"

Some more info

Notice I put a line-break at the end, I think this is necessary, not 100% sure but it can't hurt.
This will work assuming that there is a file called pt.exe in the root folder of the floppy.

In theory there can be problems if you edit the text file on a PC because afaik PC uses two separate character codes for end-of-line and line-break, whereas amiga only uses one that does both. I think Workbench comes with a text-editor called 'ed' or something so you can use that.

In fact, if you have any DOS floppies for amiga, just open them and look in s/ folder for examples
Your workbench disk has one for sure, although that one is probably super-complicated.

If you want to load a workbench from ANY floppy, you only need to copy one tiny file to the disk: "c/loadwb".
Then put this in startup-sequence and off you go! Amiga's system is in the ROM so no need for big files or anything.
You can of course find loadwb on your workbench disk.

And do get a hd or an sd-card reader or something if oyu can. Floppy disks die like flies.