TeamAROS Bounty #23 AROS Kickstart Replacement ROM

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I think what is needed, first off, is simply a bootstrap ROM that POSTs the Hardware, gets the hardware to a known state and starts the AROS Exec.library up and running...

jdiffend, do you think you could get that far?

Once we get to that point, we should be able to use parts of the original OS to test how compatible the AROS exec and Bootstrap is with the original system.

Once that is done, an IDE driver will be needed to load the rest of the OS :-)

As for an Amiga hardware graphics.library, well that is going to be a headache, and one could probably ignore (send any debug info to the serial) it and use Cybergfx/picasso96 natively instead... at least until someone bothers to write a new graphics.library... though AROS is better suited to Amiga's with Gfxboards anyway. AROS intuition and layers libraries were written to work with a cybergfx interface anyway :-D

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I think I'll need that before I can say it actually boots. If you mean starts the exec and prints the AROS logo on the screen then I agree. (ok, there's still a graphics lib issue)

If someone wants to work on a boot logo/screen for the Amiga version that would be one less job to undertake. Think of a simple 4 color AROS logo bitmap rather than the kitty mascot. Whatever ROM space it takes up leaves less for something else. Look at the current boot screen that comes up on a 1200 to get an idea of what to do. No animated or fancy stuff till we start filling up the ROM and see where were at. There are more important things.

Great idea!


4 colours, 640*512 :-D

Tweaking AROS graphics.library to RUN RTG on it. Ugh... chunky vs planar grapics. I forgot about that. Does AROS support planar graphics or is it chunky only? That could be a major problem. I suppose we are forced to use cybergfx to do anything or temporarily borrow the Amiga graphics lib for development.
 

Not really sure what you mean here :-(

The AROS graphics library is just a wrapper to the graphics.hidd which is the actual graphics driver... the AROS cybergraphics.library is also a wrapper to the graphics.hidd.

The Graphics hidd is basicly an exec library with extra bits to allow for a nice OOP design.

AROS has support for both planar and chunky graphics... as it's default mode is the 4 colour planar VGA mode that all PC gfx boards support.

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I just wasn't sure if the AROS graphics supported bitplanes. Been a long time since I looked at it. If it didn't, it would be a real PITA to make it work. Since it supports a 4 color planar mode as default, that's a great start.

 

My Stupid brain :-(

I should have said 4 bitplanes planar, which is 16 colours :-) But that is supported by the Amiga hardware anyway so no problems :-D

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For those using real Amigas, I have the AROS logo bootpic iff file to download Here.

I have squeezed it into 16 colours and optimized it to look correct at 640*256, looks great on my A500 :-) The file size is 24k, enjoy.

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whabang wrote:
This actually is move towards the possibility of an Amiga-version of the C1. A coldfire-based board with AROS, running OS 3.x applications natively would be really cool.

I'm dreaming, i know, but admit it would be cool! :-D

What do you mean dreaming? It's prefectly feasable, and only really needs this bounty to be completed.

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jdiffend wrote:
The biggest problem I've found is that AROS was designed to be a hosted OS rather than a rommable OS.  At this point it makes more sense to make the Amiga AROS ROM more like the PC bios than the Amiga OS ROM.

That's not quite true, great care has been taken to make sure that the AROS code rommable, in fact this requirement has (and still is) causing quite a few headaches :-D

I suggest you look at the x86 Native flavour as that has the AROS kernel loaded into RAM which is then protected and treated as ROM.

-Edit- Porting Openfirmware to the Amiga would be a brilliant and very popular idea though!!!

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Hattig wrote:
I think that this bounty should be able creating a replacement ROM image for Amiga emulators, so that they can be shipped legally without any requirement to 'source' Amiga Kickstart ROM images. That would give you 1MB to play about with, which might give the project some hope even considering the fact that it will be compiled C, and a pretty 16 colour logo with 'bounce' drop down effect (:p) will be an essential requirement! hah

I fully agree, I think it should target UAE first... Real Amiga later :-)

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dammy wrote:
It would be pretty funny if WB 4 and onwards were based on AROS and created by the Community instead of KMOS.

Dammy
TeamAROS

Did you say funny or inevitable ;-)

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mdma wrote:

bloodline wrote:

dammy wrote:
It would be pretty funny if WB 4 and onwards were based on AROS and created by the Community instead of KMOS.

Dammy
TeamAROS

Did you say funny or inevitable ;-)

AROS and MorphOS are inferior to OS4 apparently.

http://amigaworld.net/modules/news/article.php?storyid=1994%3Ca%20class=

Thats good know :roll:

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jdiffend wrote:

mdma wrote:

:lol:

We could set up a bounty to get the intro done in 4k! :-P

With the Ocean Loader music too! ;-)

I'm not even sure the AROS Logo posted will fit in 4K!  LOL

:roflmao:

Do keep me informed of your progress, I'm facinated by the low level stuff.

Anyway, sign up to the AROS-dev mailing list as you will get A++ help with any issues you might come across.

As for endien issues, all data structures sotred on disk are big endien and don't forget that there is already a version of AROS that compiles and runs for the Dragonball CPU (the 68k compatible CPU in the Palm device), so I'm pretty confident you will ahve no problems.

As for the ABI... again I don't forsee any problem with AmigaOS compatbility... but I've not looked into it... so fingers crossed.

Fading logo screen would be very very cool!!! :-D

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mdma wrote:

bloodline wrote:

bloodline wrote:
For those using real Amigas, I have the AROS logo bootpic iff file to download Here.

I have squeezed it into 16 colours and optimized it to look correct at 640*256, looks great on my A500 :-) The file size is 24k, enjoy.

Did any real miggy owners look at my picture?

I'm a real person.
I have miggies.

Do I count? ;-)

It looks good.

I also made a 320*256 version in 32 colours.. it still looks good, but I just prefer the hi-res one :-)

-Edit- The Lowres one is only 16k :-)

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Any news jdiffend? :-)

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mdma wrote:

bloodline wrote:
Any news jdiffend? :-)

Hopefully in this case, no news is good news.

Alas... I fear not... :-(

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mdma wrote:

bloodline wrote:

mdma wrote:

bloodline wrote:
Any news jdiffend? :-)

Hopefully in this case, no news is good news.

Alas... I fear not... :-(

Me too, but I don't like to tempt fate. :-(

There is no fate, but what we make ;-)