AmigaOS 68k development - components, critics, bugs, work-arounds, tips&tricks

[F0LLETT]

I personally have not seen any issues, when using 3.1.4-2.
However the only thing I dream of is a romable module to scan for CD-ROM, if found mount it. So we no longer need stuff in the DosDrivers to mount it.

[F0LLETT]

There is no generally valid way how to identify a CD-Rom, or in particular, a device a CD ROM could be connected to. Only those boards that come with an on-board SCSI or IDE might be able to support it. The CDFileSystem itself is ROM-able, though.

Even then, we are out of ROM space and the CDFilesystem does not fit in anymore (about 16K remains free). Before you argue "but we could have 1M ROMs"... well, we could not. The lower 0xE0 ROM space is now populated by the Vampires, so this option is taken as well.

How does ATAPIMajik work. That seems to detect fine.
Yes, CDFileSystem is romable but pointless, if it doesn't mount CD-ROM.

I don't own and never will own a Vampire, so Im not interested in it taking up space.
What about catering for both. People who use there Amiga as is and people who want to nuts on upgrades.

[F0LLETT]

How does ATAPIMajik work. That seems to detect fine.

As the name suggests, it probably only addresses ATAPI CDRoms connected to the on-board scsi.device - if you have one. But that is the easiest part of the problem - it already has a device name ("scsi.device"). The hard part is to find the name of a device a CDRom could be connected to, because there are so many. ("gvpscsi.device", "omniscsi.device", "oktagon.device", "2060scsi.device" just to name some I am aware of). In general, if you have a device name, you do not know whether this is something "scsi-like" or something completely different that may crash or do some other strange things if you try to submit a "HD_SCSICMD" to it.

Thus, in general, the problem cannot be solved without some additional knowledge of the host adater available on the system, and this knowledge has to come from the user creating (or modifying) a mount-list for the CDFileSystem.

Yes, CDFileSystem is romable but pointless, if it doesn't mount CD-ROM.

Right, and creating a suitable mount file is something that cannot be automated for reasons given above. There is no generally valid and robust way how to detect a device a CDRom may be potentially connected to. It requires some user-interaction and some knowledge on the components installed in the system.

Fair enough. Thanks for the info.

[F0LLETT]

ATAPIismajik besides using a cdfilesystem (BootCDFilesystem) works together with the CDMounter command to mount cdroms.

It only works, as Thomas mentioned in a very few select device interfaces, which are:

scsi.device
2ndscsi.device (A4000T scsi)
cybppc.device (CyberStormPPC scsi)

That situation is what I would expect. This is why I said about it. We are talking about default config, not fancy stuff. So booting from CD with scsi.device and 2ndscsi.device would be great.

[F0LLETT]

I personally have not seen any issues, when using 3.1.4-2.
However the only thing I dream of is a romable module to scan for CD-ROM, if found mount it. So we no longer need stuff in the DosDrivers to mount it.

Why though? I honestly don't understand this... it's two files isn't it stored on the boot disk. Why have it in ROM? If it's CD booting you're after, then I'm sure you're aware it can be achieved via scripting in your startup-sequence.
Also, this leads me to something which no one has mentioned really which is the poor old 68000. The more bloat added in the OS or ROM, the slower it will be for poor 7MHz 68000 users who will certainly notice the difference.

Thats why there are different roms for different machines. Like using floppy or HDD, I would rather it all there on boot on a 1200 / 4000.
Anyways, Ill just stick to my CD32 startup-sequence.

[F0LLETT]

I personally have not seen any issues, when using 3.1.4-2.
However the only thing I dream of is a romable module to scan for CD-ROM, if found mount it. So we no longer need stuff in the DosDrivers to mount it.

Why though? I honestly don't understand this... it's two files isn't it stored on the boot disk. Why have it in ROM? If it's CD booting you're after, then I'm sure you're aware it can be achieved via scripting in your startup-sequence.
Also, this leads me to something which no one has mentioned really which is the poor old 68000. The more bloat added in the OS or ROM, the slower it will be for poor 7MHz 68000 users who will certainly notice the difference.

Thats why there are different roms for different machines. Like using floppy or HDD, I would rather it all there on boot on a 1200 / 4000.
Anyways, Ill just stick to my CD32 startup-sequence.

Im using 1 MB ROM now with latest 3.1.4-2

[F0LLETT]

  * many of its features are pointless or have "issues" since they rely on a third party product to work as intended
   (a product with unclear legal status, an update with all ties to to Amiga Inc. removed would clear this up)

I agree with this 110%.... Nothing against the devs creating this HW but, supporting their HW in ROM makes NO sense to me.

Hm - HW as in hardware? I was talking about third party software, not hardware (I thought this was obvious)

Yes, but he has a point. Why support Vampire in the rom and not CD-ROM on ide scsi thats already part of the machine.

I would rather like to see full PCMCIA support for booting CF cards, micro HDDs etc...

This too would be awesome.

[F0LLETT]

Even then, we are out of ROM space and the CDFilesystem does not fit in anymore (about 16K remains free). Before you argue "but we could have 1M ROMs"... well, we could not. The lower 0xE0 ROM space is now populated by the Vampires, so this option is taken as well.

Yes, but he has a point. Why support Vampire in the rom and not CD-ROM on ide scsi thats already part of the machine.

There is no Vampire support in kickstart ROM, I don't know why you suggest that there is.

Misread, it takes up address space. Point is, there should be no worrying about other hardware. Each amiga is as is. So it should be updated on that basis.

[F0LLETT]

What is your goal with these essay long rants here Thomas, closing down this thread? I was requested to open my own thread about my issues, so I did, only to find it littered within a few hours about rather irrelevant discussions about booting from CD drives and 1MB kickstart roms...

It is perfectly doable to fit variants of workbench.library and icon.library in a 512kB rom. Note that I didn’t argue for 1MB rom, I just find some of your arguments a bit far fetched.

Sorry didn't realise you wanted this as your own personal thread. Thought it was open to any one to mention stuff, as the title suggests.