Kickstart ROM Replacement (Phase I) Bounty Assigned

[vidarh]

@vidarh
Thanks for updating the console handler, it was very much needed.

Thanks. I was desperate There's still lots to do there, though - I'm hoping to get some time to do more with it later. Work + ironing out bugs in the AROS FrexxEd port is holding me up at the moment.

[wawrzon]

Minimig, FPGAArcade and Natami immediately come to mind.

I don't know what a monochrome Aros will look like for the OCS driver! I think someone needs to get cracking on a monochrome theme for AROS Zune.

you can test ot for yourself, just turn don the color depth to minimum on your afa screen. i have written a small gadgets rplacement for =<8bit afa screens (fat from perfect but works) and tested it on all screen depths. well, i think it looks way cool. a little like ur olde apple finder;).

To help avoid the frustration I'd recommend using the same method MorphOS used: Take original KS ROM and replace components one at a time. This will help debugging a lot. You can easily switch between original and replacement modules to see where some issue might originate. Eventually you wil be able to get rid of the original KS ROM completely and run on your own.

@piru: i think it is quite important point worth to repeat again and again. the same technique applies to afa, thats why it works reliably. but i trust if someone has got already as far he will know that for himself

@thread: this bounty has maybe been taken and fallen many times already, but now it looks serious. also that it was assigned first after the coder has apparently made a proof of concept and the short assignment itself. if this is giong to be confirmed i will make some further funds loose for this, and am willing to test.

[Terminills]

@wawrzon


After watching the dev-ml for the last few weeks I was starting to wonder if Jason actually slept. =D

If I recall he was posting patches for a week or so before he even mentioned he would be going after this bounty.

All in all this is great news =]

[hardlink]

And to take advantage of a system that is being still developed, and has some neat modern features that AmigaOS for classics never had...

...partially because of limitations due to business reasons the CBM Kickstart authors were working under. Kickstart had to fit in the 512K ROM, period; no CD-boot, etc. I remember postings from them about developer meetings to try and reorganize code to squeeze in an extra 2 bytes(!) into the ROM. Let's go for a whopping 1 Meg !

[Heiroglyph]

I'm not sure why everything must go in ROM anyway, it seems very limiting if you aren't stuck with double-density floppies only.

Get the machine reading the drives, then load the rest from disk.

It's much more flexible and it's more easily fixed in the field, especially if CDRoms and USB are supported as boot media.

[jj]

What like the original A1000 then

[Heiroglyph]

I didn't think of it that way, but yes, that could definitely work.

I was thinking more like my 4000T that has workbench.library on disk for a similar reason.

[kickstart]

I'm not sure why this isn't exciting to Real Amiga owners.

New Kickstart
Potential for CD-Rom boot
Potential replacements for all outdated OS parts
Standards for drivers
Standards for RTG
Standards for PCI access

Most importantly, developers can finally develop RTG and other drivers, bypassing the assholes in control of Picasso, Cybervision and proprietary PCI buses.  (If anyone has hurt the 68k cause, it's those guys)

And nobody can sue this project out of business, it's open source so it can live forever.

Once it is ABI compatible, this will be the biggest thing for Amiga since OS3.1!

Then you are talking of some Amigas, a new os oriented for rtg people isnt the real world talking of classic amigas.

[Gulliver]

I'm not sure why everything must go in ROM anyway, it seems very limiting if you aren't stuck with double-density floppies only.

Get the machine reading the drives, then load the rest from disk.

It's much more flexible and it's more easily fixed in the field, especially if CDRoms and USB are supported as boot media.

ROM usage for storing OS components was a good idea back in the times of slow and constrained space storage media, like floppies, early harddrives, and tapes (do you remeber tapes dont you?). As they were slow, rom was "the very best thing" they could use, and having portions of the OS over there, not only allowed faster operation, but they also enabled you to save precious storage space.

Times have changed: Rom is not that fast now compared to actual hardrives that are pretty quick and efficient. So a kickstart today, has really no sense to be in rom, it should be on a drive.
Only the bootstrap code should still be kept in rom.

[vidarh]

Then you are talking of some Amigas, a new os oriented for rtg people isnt the real world talking of classic amigas.

Why do you think it would be "oriented for rtg people" just because it'll make it possible to replace drivers for those who want it?

The point of AROS being open source is that it means people can take it in whatever direction they want - those that want just original hardware can stick with that and still get enhancements; those that want to use all kinds of expansions can get them better integrated with the core. And those who want different hardware altogether can still enjoy an AmigaOS like OS.

It's not either/or.

[Cosmos]

>So a kickstart today, has really no sense to be in rom, it should be on a drive

?!???!??!??

[kolla]

Please ignore the dumbasses :lol:

[wawrzon]

Then you are talking of some Amigas, a new os oriented for rtg people isnt the real world talking of classic amigas.

ok, point taken, but if it stays reasonable compatible to these olde amigas (assume 500 sorts, which were anyway equipped with appropriate kickstart and os and probably cannot be expanded much beyound that) it is good to have an alternative to proprietary kickstart/os. even better if support for the amiga chipsets might be incorporated at some point.

[Gulliver]

>So a kickstart today, has really no sense to be in rom, it should be on a drive

?!???!??!??

Yes, definately, on a modern system.

Another advantage is that rom is of course read-only. You may use an eeprom, but then you will have to add complexity to the system for just reprogramming it.
To modify a file on a harddrive it is pretty easy and fast.

But hey, if you are still using floppies on an A500, then just keeping your old rom there, as it makes sense, as mentioned in my other post.

[wawrzon]

kickstart rom has an advantage that the system critical files cannot be easily deleted or modified by malicious software or simple oversight.
i am totally happy with the huge flash the deneb provides that can be used for this. the only complaint was that i would prefer to have all single modules loose in a plain directory instead still have to include a bootable kickstart image along. updating would be simple then.

[Gulliver]

kickstart rom has an advantage that the system critical files cannot be easily deleted or modified by malicious software or simple oversight.
i am totally happy with the huge flash the deneb provides that can be used for this. the only complaint was that i would prefer to have all single modules loose in a plain directory instead still have to include a bootable kickstart image along. updating would be simple then.

I agree that the Deneb is an elegant solution for having a rewritable kickstart rom. But then it is only available for Zorro Amigas! And it is not a cheap or simple solution (technically speaking) and what about the other non Zorro Amigas?