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Author Topic: New AROS bounties  (Read 4135 times)

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Offline jj

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Re: New AROS bounties
« Reply #29 from previous page: January 22, 2008, 12:16:40 PM »
I would imagine that the Kickstart roms will become public domain , free to use before a replacement is coded
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Offline bloodline

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Re: New AROS bounties
« Reply #30 on: January 22, 2008, 01:20:51 PM »
Quote

Piru wrote:
@HenryCase
Quote
reverse engineering & reimplementing Kickstart ROM

This is a huge task, however. You make it sound as if it'd be couple of months for 2-3 guys.

More like 5-10 years, assuming you find skilled and well motivated hackers to do it.

PC BIOS was only couple of KB, trivial in comparison.


Indeed, for AROS the real quest is to write a ROM that will POST the machine and allow it to boot AROS... That should be enough for most software (OS legal apps would be dependant on AROS, and most games and demos tend to bypass the ROM once the machine is brought up to a known state)... then work can progress at making it more compatible if needs must.

Offline Einstein

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Re: New AROS bounties
« Reply #31 on: January 22, 2008, 11:48:03 PM »
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HenryCase wrote:

I see. Well, if it makes AROS more stable then I'm all for it (not that I'm saying it isn't stable now you understand!).


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Offline Mangar

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Re: New AROS bounties
« Reply #32 on: January 23, 2008, 12:24:06 AM »
I think SATA support is really important since most modern systems use SATA HDD's.
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Offline HenryCaseTopic starter

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Re: New AROS bounties
« Reply #33 on: January 23, 2008, 01:10:59 AM »
Quote
Piru wrote:
@HenryCase
Quote
reverse engineering & reimplementing Kickstart ROM

This is a huge task, however. You make it sound as if it'd be couple of months for 2-3 guys.

More like 5-10 years, assuming you find skilled and well motivated hackers to do it.

PC BIOS was only couple of KB, trivial in comparison. Yet it took 15 guys several months or so.


Piru, I now understand the enormity of this task...

I downloaded Amiga Kickstart ROMs tonight and tried decompiling one into 68k ASM. The resultant text file is 3406 pages long in Word (using 10pt Courier New). However, it isn't a task we can shy away from, as it isn't just important for AROS but for a number of other projects as well.

Looks like I'm going to be busy building an 68k ASM coder army! :-o :-D

Piru, what new bounties would you like to see for AROS?
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Offline bloodline

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Re: New AROS bounties
« Reply #34 on: January 23, 2008, 01:39:12 AM »
@HenryCase

Unless you got the offset right you have now got 3000 pages of garbage :-)

By the way you have now rendered youself unable to work on a kickstart replacement :-(

Offline HenryCaseTopic starter

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Re: New AROS bounties
« Reply #35 on: January 23, 2008, 02:14:54 AM »
@bloodline
I used a great 68k disassembler called IRAPC, created easily readable ASM code. I'm no coder, but I do recognise the format the code takes. Whether it compiles again into a useable ROM is another matter!

I am really not worried that I cannot work on the kickstart replacement directly, but I would be willing to coordinate the work, as well as try to analyse the structure of the kickstart to assist the coders.

Question is how long will this work take? Lets say I managed to find 10 willing 68k ASM coders, we'd still be looking at 2-3 years before completion. I'd hope that the bounty would have increased quite a bit by this time.
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Offline SamuraiCrow

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Re: New AROS bounties
« Reply #36 on: January 23, 2008, 03:31:26 AM »
Quote

HenryCase wrote:
@SamuraiCrow
Mattathias BASIC does sound great. I posted a few questions on the project's SourceForge page, hope you don't mind me repeating them here:
1. How far through the development is this project (i.e. is a release candidate or beta version due soon)?
2. Which version of AmigaOS is going to be your first target platform (please say AROS!)?
3. Does Mattathias BASIC follow similar syntax to AMOS?

1.  When the first beta is released, keep in mind that it won't have all of the Amos features added.  We're basing it on LLVM so it will be ready several months if not years sooner than if we wrote the whole thing ourselves.  And to answer your question, it isn't ready yet and probably not too soon.

2.  The AROS version will directly follow the Linux, Windows, and Mac versions.  So yes, it will be the first Amiga-like OS to have Mattathias.

3.  Yes.  That's why it's taking so long.  We are improving the extension format so that a Mattathias BASIC programmer can develop their own extensions in Mattathias.