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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: barney on May 04, 2011, 02:35:10 PM

Title: Kickstart 1.2 or 1.3
Post by: barney on May 04, 2011, 02:35:10 PM
Which kichstart is compatible with the most Amiga software: 1.2 or 1.3?  Thanks.
Title: Re: Kickstart 1.2 or 1.3
Post by: carls on May 04, 2011, 02:43:58 PM
Quote from: barney;635308
Which kichstart is compatible with the most Amiga software: 1.2 or 1.3?  Thanks.


I'd say that 3.x and up are compatible with most software, given that virtually no new software has been written with 1.2/1.3 in mind since, oh, 1995?

If you want to run old OCS games and demos I'd go with 1.3.
Title: Re: Kickstart 1.2 or 1.3
Post by: barney on May 04, 2011, 02:49:41 PM
Thanks.  I'll give it a try.

Barney
Title: Re: Kickstart 1.2 or 1.3
Post by: save2600 on May 04, 2011, 02:52:24 PM
I was surprised the other day when I found Starflight actually requires Kickstart 1.2. Does not work under 1.3.  :lol:

But yeah, I'd go with 1.3 if all you're doing is playing games on a floppy based Amiga.
Title: Re: Kickstart 1.2 or 1.3
Post by: barney on May 04, 2011, 03:01:41 PM
My main goal is very simple....I want to get Infocom's "Lurking Horror" to play the sounds.  I have tried time and time again to get them to work but no luck.  Maybe the secret is to use KS 1.2.
Title: Re: Kickstart 1.2 or 1.3
Post by: freqmax on May 04, 2011, 03:01:43 PM
Have a selectable kickstart..

Guess 1.3 and 3.x is the best in their respective genre.
Title: Re: Kickstart 1.2 or 1.3
Post by: Bamiga2002 on May 04, 2011, 03:10:35 PM
for Double Dragon II i'd go for kick 1.2 :)

there are some titles that require kick 1.2 to work.
Title: Re: Kickstart 1.2 or 1.3
Post by: barney on May 04, 2011, 03:26:11 PM
Currently I am using a triple Kickstart selector (1.3, 2.04, 3.1).  I may remove it and put in a double kickstart with 1.2 and 3.1.
Title: Re: Kickstart 1.2 or 1.3
Post by: yorgle on May 04, 2011, 03:52:34 PM
For what it's worth, the early demos required the OS version they were made against, especially pre-release amiga stuff (v27, v29, although i've gotten some of the v27 demos to work with v29 kickstart, iirc).

1.1 was another funny one.  Some of the older software requires 1.1 or 1.0.  MusiCraft is one that comes to mind. It was made for 1.1, and might work for a little while on 1.2 or newer, but it has some graphics glitches.  Same with Instant Music.

It's been a very long time since I played with this stuff, so i may be talking out of my butt here.

Related; Does anyone have the pre-pre release version of MusicCraft?  So far as I can tell there is one common version out there, and one rare, earlier version which has a version of "Spanish Flea" that I've not heard since the late 80s.  (Yes, there are other versions, but I want to hear that particular one.)  If anyone has leads on this, please let me know.
Title: Re: Kickstart 1.2 or 1.3
Post by: LaserBack on May 04, 2011, 04:23:24 PM
the best kickstart for games is 1.2

in fact there are not games that works on 1.3 but don't works on 1.2

tons of games will not works on kick1.3 and higher
examples archon 1 y 2....one on one, and most of pre 1988 games
Title: Re: Kickstart 1.2 or 1.3
Post by: Matt_H on May 04, 2011, 05:39:44 PM
Quote from: barney;635320
Currently I am using a triple Kickstart selector (1.3, 2.04, 3.1).  I may remove it and put in a double kickstart with 1.2 and 3.1.


For maximum compatibility with that setup, use 1.2, 1.3, and 3.1 in the Kickstart switcher. 99.9% of what works under 2.x will work under 3.1.
Title: Re: Kickstart 1.2 or 1.3
Post by: barney on May 04, 2011, 07:11:26 PM
The current Rom switcher I am using is a single programmed Rom chip containing all three Rom's on it (1.3, 2.04 and 3.1).

Does anybody know of a Rom Switcher that has three inputs for three physical Roms?  I know Amigakit has a Rom selector that allows two chips to be connected but to this day I have never seen one that allows for three chips.
Title: Re: Kickstart 1.2 or 1.3
Post by: psxphill on May 04, 2011, 07:18:50 PM
Quote from: LaserBack;635342
tons of games will not works on kick1.3 and higher
examples archon 1 y 2....one on one, and most of pre 1988 games

I've never owned a 1.2 Amiga & I don't remember any games that didn't work on 1.3, only a version of soundtracker. All the degrader utils that people used on a500+/a600/a1200 were 1.3
Title: Re: Kickstart 1.2 or 1.3
Post by: lsmart on May 04, 2011, 08:11:53 PM
As far as I remember there wasn´t much difference between 1.3 and 1.2 except that 1.3 could boot from HD. But if you want to play and Infocom game, why don´t you use any of the free zPlayer implementations like "Amiga Infocom" by InfoTaskForce/David Kinder, which also works under Workbench 3?
Title: Re: Kickstart 1.2 or 1.3
Post by: LaserBack on May 04, 2011, 10:36:08 PM
Quote from: psxphill;635395
I've never owned a 1.3 Amiga & I don't remember any games that didn't work on 1.3, only a version of soundtracker. All the degrader utils that people used on a500+/a600/a1200 were 1.3


yes most of degraders uses kick 1.3
they used kick 1.3 because it was the standart for the A500 after 1988
but there are A500 and A2000 manufactured in 1987 that comes with kick 1.2
and lot of bad written games from that era don't works on kick 1.3 like I said in my previous post

you can softkick kickstart 1.2 using skick346 on aminet
kick 1.2 is the kickstart I use to degrade my A1200 to play A500 games

btw,also there a cup of bad written games that only works on kick 1.1  
I don't remember which ones now ....were made for the A1000
Title: Re: Kickstart 1.2 or 1.3
Post by: lost_loven on May 04, 2011, 11:35:53 PM
I had problems with starwars.. worked on 1.2 but never on my 1.3 (a500)

lost
Title: Re: Kickstart 1.2 or 1.3
Post by: bloodline on May 04, 2011, 11:38:03 PM
Quote from: lsmart;635406
As far as I remember there wasn´t much difference between 1.3 and 1.2 except that 1.3 could boot from HD. But if you want to play and Infocom game, why don´t you use any of the free zPlayer implementations like "Amiga Infocom" by InfoTaskForce/David Kinder, which also works under Workbench 3?
1.3 was a quick fix to get Automount in place for HD, IIRC it was otherwise identical to 1.2... I think it was Dave Haynie who explained that in an interview somewhere.
Title: Re: Kickstart 1.2 or 1.3
Post by: freqmax on May 04, 2011, 11:58:08 PM
Yeah HDD support was quite essential, which v1,3 added ;)

A kickstart ROM which uses RAM with write disabled in use should be able to use any kickstart you can think of.
Title: Re: Kickstart 1.2 or 1.3
Post by: shaf on May 05, 2011, 02:53:38 AM
Some of the games that only worked with Kick 1.1/1.2 was EA's Arctic Fox, Archon, and Adventure Construction Set.
Title: Re: Kickstart 1.2 or 1.3
Post by: AmigaPixel on May 07, 2011, 09:37:08 AM
"I've never owned a 1.2 Amiga & I don't remember any games that didn't work on 1.3"

Same here, I don't recall having any problems with any thing working with 1.3 except the apps that were newer and required the 2.04 rom I used to switch to.
Title: Re: Kickstart 1.2 or 1.3
Post by: LaserBack on May 07, 2011, 10:12:42 AM
Quote from: freqmax;635511
Yeah HDD support was quite essential, which v1,3 added ;)

A kickstart ROM which uses RAM with write disabled in use should be able to use any kickstart you can think of.


kick 1.3 added boot from hardisk
but
you can use a hardisk on kick 1.2
the problem of kick 1.2 is that the system can't boot from hardisk....only from floppy
the system will boot from a floppy and then ...you can mount the hardisk typing in shell for example mount DH0:
or adding that line on the startup-sequence
to make it work also it needs the correct hardisk data in the archive devs:mountlist
Title: Re: Kickstart 1.2 or 1.3
Post by: Kronos on May 07, 2011, 10:34:12 AM
Actually one can boot from HD with 1.2, but that was a hack and stopped working with 2.0 onwards.

Another difference in 1.3 was the support for more than 512k Chip-RAM. AFAIR 1.2 will crash&burn with 1 or 2 MB.
Title: Re: Kickstart 1.2 or 1.3
Post by: freqmax on May 07, 2011, 03:05:31 PM
HDD boot with 2.x didn't work !?
Title: Re: Kickstart 1.2 or 1.3
Post by: Matt_H on May 07, 2011, 03:37:18 PM
Quote from: freqmax;636274
HDD boot with 2.x didn't work !?


I think Kronos was describing the hacky method to autoboot under 1.2 that didn't work under 2.0 - and it of course wasn't necessary under 2.0.
Title: Re: Kickstart 1.2 or 1.3
Post by: drHirudo on May 07, 2011, 09:00:06 PM
For best compatibility and speed use KS 3.1 with WHDLoad and hard drive.
Title: Re: Kickstart 1.2 or 1.3
Post by: LaserBack on May 08, 2011, 12:53:46 AM
Quote from: Kronos;636255


Another difference in 1.3 was the support for more than 512k Chip-RAM. AFAIR 1.2 will crash&burn with 1 or 2 MB.


are you sure?
from where you got that info?
just I tried a config on winuae....kickstart 1.2 with 1mb and 2mb chip ram and worked very well...no crashes and games and workbench worked fine
Title: Re: Kickstart 1.2 or 1.3
Post by: gaula92 on May 08, 2011, 01:03:54 AM
Is it possible to boot from HD with KS 1.3?
I tried it with Minimig and it doesn't work: booting from HD works from 2.05.
Maybe it's because Minimig uses A600 IDE?
Title: Re: Kickstart 1.2 or 1.3
Post by: AmigaPixel on May 08, 2011, 04:46:37 AM
Quote from: gaula92;636437
Is it possible to boot from HD with KS 1.3?
I tried it with Minimig and it doesn't work: booting from HD works from 2.05.
Maybe it's because Minimig uses A600 IDE?


I can't speak for the Minimig, but when I bought my A2000 in 1993 it came with Kickstart 1.3 and a 40 meg SCSI HD. It booted right from the HD. Isn't the Minimig designed to be compatible with KS 1.3, even with using the SD/MMC card to IDE?
Title: Re: Kickstart 1.2 or 1.3
Post by: gaula92 on May 08, 2011, 10:02:44 AM
Quote from: AmigaPixel;636479
I can't speak for the Minimig, but when I bought my A2000 in 1993 it came with Kickstart 1.3 and a 40 meg SCSI HD. It booted right from the HD. Isn't the Minimig designed to be compatible with KS 1.3, even with using the SD/MMC card to IDE?


Yes, the Minimig IS compatible with 1.3.
In fact, that's the KS version I use to boot it when I want it to become an Amiga 500.
But my KS 1.3 is 256KB in size. Maybe it's an 1.3 from A500 wich could be different from a KS 1.3 in an A2000. Just speculating here.
Title: Re: Kickstart 1.2 or 1.3
Post by: Digiman on May 08, 2011, 12:04:46 PM
21,000 games...90% OCS KS 1.x based hmmmmm.

The answer is KS 1.3 for classic non-AGA use.
Title: Re: Kickstart 1.2 or 1.3
Post by: motrucker on May 08, 2011, 04:18:52 PM
This is the main reason I keep my trusty old A1000 disk based Kickstart. There are quite a few games that need 1.2. I would rather use 1.3 when I can though.
Title: Re: Kickstart 1.2 or 1.3
Post by: LaserBack on May 08, 2011, 06:44:48 PM
Quote from: Digiman;636513
21,000 games...90% OCS KS 1.x based hmmmmm.

The answer is KS 1.3 for classic non-AGA use.


that number is an exaggeration
Title: Re: Kickstart 1.2 or 1.3
Post by: Lockon_15 on May 08, 2011, 07:41:28 PM
Total number od 21,000 might be a bit too high, but OCS percentage is actually more than 90%. HOL has some 440 AGA titles while OCS tops it with more than 5170...Kickstart 1.3 is the one...
Title: Re: Kickstart 1.2 or 1.3
Post by: LaserBack on May 08, 2011, 08:07:54 PM
Quote from: Lockon_15;636560
Total number od 21,000 might be a bit too high, but OCS percentage is actually more than 90%. HOL has some 440 AGA titles while OCS tops it with more than 5170...Kickstart 1.3 is the one...


The HOL numbers you are counting is incorrect
HOL manages titles with different names different versions,unrealesed titles.... and everything there is in the same bag
I estimate there are 1100 commercial amiga games in total AGA and CD32 included
PD games,sharware and PC ports is another story which can add maybe 1000 buggy titles
Title: Re: Kickstart 1.2 or 1.3
Post by: Lockon_15 on May 08, 2011, 09:49:05 PM
Commercial or not, PD or shareware, native Amiga or ported, that doesn't change the fact they run on Amiga and thus are indeed accountable, versions put aside. As I understand, key question is what fraction of Amiga games require Kickstart 1.2 in order to run flawlessly. Getting exact number od total titles might be quite a challenge. HOL is just a single reference, I can also quote 'Lemon Amiga' with more than 3450 titles, followed by some 2400 at SPS/CAPS and a WHDLoad trailing at 2200. I guess that previous poster meant 21000 floppy disks or something like that. 20,000 games were maybe total count for Sinclair or C64, not for 16-bit machines.
BTW, what is 'buggy' by your definition ? Something that won't run on KS1.2 ?
Title: Re: Kickstart 1.2 or 1.3
Post by: dougal on February 03, 2014, 08:32:09 AM
Quote from: drHirudo;636370
For best compatibility and speed use KS 3.1 with WHDLoad and hard drive.

WHDLoad requires 1MB chipram & 2MB+ fastram to work properly.

There are a couple of games that need 2MB chipram. Wizkid WHDLoad for example will not run without 1.1MB.

You can use WHDLoad without fastram but that would mean having to disable the PRELOAD option which makes the games work much worse than if you had to play them from floppy disks.
Title: Re: Kickstart 1.2 or 1.3
Post by: dougal on February 03, 2014, 08:46:12 AM
If you want an A500 for classic games to be played from floppy disk your best option would  probably be an A500 with Kickstart 1.3 (or 1.2) + 512K expansion. (512K chipram + 512K Slowram).

If you want a classic A500 to use WHDLoad your best oprion will probably be an A500+ with a 1MB trapdoor expansion & a harddrive/fastram expansion such as an A590 or the Kipper fastram/compact flash IDE board & upgrade the kickstart to 3.1.

A500+ has the advantage that it can address 2MB chipram WITHOUT any expensive MiniMegi chip or similar. The A500 can only address 1MB chipram as standard.
Title: Re: Kickstart 1.2 or 1.3
Post by: psxphill on February 03, 2014, 10:45:42 AM
Quote from: gaula92;636437
Is it possible to boot from HD with KS 1.3?
I tried it with Minimig and it doesn't work: booting from HD works from 2.05.
Maybe it's because Minimig uses A600 IDE?

Yes, you need to build a kickstart 1.3 that includes the scsi.device from the 2.05 rom to be able to boot from an a600 ide interface on 1.3. The same thing would happen trying to run 1.3 on an A1200 or A600.
 
For 1.3 to boot from hard disk, it needs a device driver in rom for the hard disk controller. On a500/a1000/a2000 bootable hard drives that rom is on the hard disk interface card.
 
A600/A1200/A3000/A4000 had built in hard disk interfaces so their kickstart had the driver in them. Although if you added an extra interface (i.e. SCSI on the A600/A1200/A4000) then that too would have to have a device driver in it's rom to be able to boot from it.
Title: Re: Kickstart 1.2 or 1.3
Post by: arkpandora on November 11, 2014, 09:04:23 PM
Quote from: LaserBack;635342
the best kickstart for games is 1.2

in fact there are not games that works on 1.3 but don't works on 1.2

My brand new "Mr. Nutz" was the only one of my non-AGA games that didn't work on a KS 1.2 A500 with 1 MB (512 KB Chip + 512 KB Fast), while it worked on an A4000.  Unless it required 1 MB of Chip RAM instead of 512 KB Chip + 512 KB Fast, that means it required at least KS 1.3.
Title: Re: Kickstart 1.2 or 1.3
Post by: PanterHZ on November 12, 2014, 06:34:27 AM
Quote from: psxphill;758370
Yes, you need to build a kickstart 1.3 that includes the scsi.device from the 2.05 rom to be able to boot from an a600 ide interface on 1.3. The same thing would happen trying to run 1.3 on an A1200 or A600.
 
For 1.3 to boot from hard disk, it needs a device driver in rom for the hard disk controller. On a500/a1000/a2000 bootable hard drives that rom is on the hard disk interface card.
 
A600/A1200/A3000/A4000 had built in hard disk interfaces so their kickstart had the driver in them. Although if you added an extra interface (i.e. SCSI on the A600/A1200/A4000) then that too would have to have a device driver in it's rom to be able to boot from it.

An alternative can also be to use this: http://aminet.net/package/util/boot/GetSCSI11

Grab scsi.device from Kickstart 2.05 by using the supplied GetSCSI tool, and then create a boot disk with the resulting scsi.device file. Instructions are included with the package.
Title: Re: Kickstart 1.2 or 1.3
Post by: guest11527 on November 12, 2014, 07:51:15 AM
Quote from: LaserBack;636434
are you sure?
from where you got that info?
just I tried a config on winuae....kickstart 1.2 with 1mb and 2mb chip ram and worked very well...no crashes and games and workbench worked fine

Yes, but... What Kickstart 1.2 did (and I believe the same also goes for 1.3) is that it first makes a "plausibility test" for the amount of chip mem when rebooting. If it finds more than 512K, it says "hoops, something is wrong, probably this is a cold start and I should try to find the amount of chip mem again".  

The end result is that you do get 1MB of chip RAM, but without further fixing, reset-resident system components won't work, i.e. "KickTagPtrs" and "KickTagMem" won't work. In specific, the RAD: ram drive is not reset-resident with 1MB chip and Kick 1.2 (and I believe also 1.3, this is an old and long-standing bug). With the arrival of Workbench 1.3, CBM included a hot-fix for this problem in SetPatch that essentially worked arond the problem, thus: Kick 1.2 plus 1.3 SetPatch or Kick 1.3 plus 1.3 SetPatch *will* work with 1MB chip mem, and will allow reset-resident programs.

Kick 1.3 was really a minimal recompile of 1.2, with the romboot.library added to allow booting from HD - this was the really new part that arrived in 1.3. Everything is just 1.2 as it came, most bugs included.
Title: Re: Kickstart 1.2 or 1.3
Post by: Jope on July 04, 2015, 07:18:57 AM
Quote from: Thomas Richter;777147
The end result is that you do get 1MB of chip RAM, but without further fixing, reset-resident system components won't work, i.e. "KickTagPtrs" and "KickTagMem" won't work. In specific, the RAD: ram drive is not reset-resident with 1MB chip and Kick 1.2 (and I believe also 1.3, this is an old and long-standing bug). With the arrival of Workbench 1.3, CBM included a hot-fix for this problem in SetPatch that essentially worked arond the problem, thus: Kick 1.2 plus 1.3 SetPatch or Kick 1.3 plus 1.3 SetPatch *will* work with 1MB chip mem, and will allow reset-resident programs.

Verified. SetPatch doesn't help here (I have the 1.3.3 setpatch). I just patched my 1.3 ROM to check for a max size of $200000 instead of $080000, burned a new EPROM, and now I have 1MB chip, a 1.3 ROM and a reset resident RAD.

Thanks for this crucial tip, I had forgotten all about it and spent an evening scratching my head and trying various things when my RAD always disappeared on reboot. :-)

Edit: and of course it was all in vain, as setpatch R would have been the answer. :-D
Title: Re: Kickstart 1.2 or 1.3
Post by: Pentad on July 04, 2015, 07:15:57 PM
Quote from: Thomas Richter;777147


Kick 1.3 was really a minimal recompile of 1.2, with the romboot.library added to allow booting from HD - this was the really new part that arrived in 1.3. Everything is just 1.2 as it came, most bugs included.


I could not disagree more.  I was an actual beta tester for OS 1.3 and it was much more than 1.2 with the HD boot fix.  There were quite a lot of bugs fixed in 1.3 and some real improvements as well.

It has been a long time since I thought about this but the biggest change came in the file system.  It was more robust, it handled minor errors way better than 1.2, disk doctor was finally killed off, and it was more stable.

I used to post my bug reports on BIX at the time.  Good memories!

-P
Title: Re: Kickstart 1.2 or 1.3
Post by: guest11527 on July 04, 2015, 09:02:12 PM
Quote from: Pentad;792087
I could not disagree more.  I was an actual beta tester for OS 1.3 and it was much more than 1.2 with the HD boot fix.  There were quite a lot of bugs fixed in 1.3 and some real improvements as well.
Note my specific use of the word "Kickstart". Workbench components were indeed redone, but the Kickstart was not. Look at the version numbers...  1.3 brought FFS, but that was  a disk-based component. Even then, the v34 FFS also had a couple of bugs, for example it returned wrong protection bit information for directories.
Title: Re: Kickstart 1.2 or 1.3
Post by: Bugala on July 04, 2015, 10:22:46 PM
@yorgle

I guess they updated "Instant Music" at some point, since when I got my first A500 (1.3 something), it was bundled with Instant Music and as far as i recall, worked fine.
Title: Re: Kickstart 1.2 or 1.3
Post by: Minuous on July 05, 2015, 05:39:26 AM
Plenty of games will work on KS1.2 but not 1.3. Whereas I don't know of any that will work on 1.3 but not 1.2. Therefore it's always best to use KS1.2.
Title: Re: Kickstart 1.2 or 1.3
Post by: danbeaver on July 05, 2015, 06:21:37 AM
Quote from: Bugala;792092
@yorgle, I guess they updated "Instant Music" at some point, since when I got my first A500 (1.3 something), it was bundled with Instant Music and as far as i recall, worked fine.
....

Quote from: Minuous;792110
Plenty of games will work on KS1.2 but not 1.3. Whereas I don't know of any that will work on 1.3 but not 1.2. Therefore it's always best to use KS1.2.

I believe that the most recent reincarnation of this very old thread has moved beyond the title, and if one picks up with post #42 (based on earlier discussions), then you will find a different area of concern over compatibility.
Title: Re: Kickstart 1.2 or 1.3
Post by: Cosmos Amiga on July 05, 2015, 06:38:43 AM
Anyone about a Kickstart 1.3.1 ? or 1.3.2 ? I don't remember exactly...

Back in the days, if my memory is good, a friend of mine had this new Kickstart into his A500... I saw the white hand & floppy with 1.3.1 (or 1.3.2...) !

Where to download ?



:)
Title: Re: Kickstart 1.2 or 1.3
Post by: paul1981 on July 05, 2015, 12:34:15 PM
Quote from: Minuous;792110
Plenty of games will work on KS1.2 but not 1.3. Whereas I don't know of any that will work on 1.3 but not 1.2. Therefore it's always best to use KS1.2.


I'm sure you contradict yourself here. Or am I losing the plot?
Title: Re: Kickstart 1.2 or 1.3
Post by: olsen on July 05, 2015, 01:44:18 PM
Quote from: Pentad;792087
I could not disagree more.  I was an actual beta tester for OS 1.3 and it was much more than 1.2 with the HD boot fix.  There were quite a lot of bugs fixed in 1.3 and some real improvements as well.

It has been a long time since I thought about this but the biggest change came in the file system.  It was more robust, it handled minor errors way better than 1.2, disk doctor was finally killed off, and it was more stable.

I used to post my bug reports on BIX at the time.  Good memories!

-P
I checked and I can confirm this (except for the DiskDoctor command). Commodore (specifically, Bart Whitebook) wrote the following on October 19, 1987 regarding Kickstart 1.2.1 (which appears to be the in-house name for the product until it was rechristened "Kickstart 1.3"):
Quote

V1.2.1 is an incremental kickstart release.  It is designed to  maintain V1.2 compatiblity throughout, while adding two important features to the operating system.  These features are 1) autoboot from ROM-based expansion devices and 2) a larger preferences structure for future expansion.
The same document then details the changes since Kickstart 1.2 (v33.180):

- expansion.library (functional change, internal only)
- graphics.library (size change, no functional changes)
- strap (functional change, internal only)
- romboot (new module added to support autoboot)
- workbench (size change, no functional changes)
- dos.library (functional change, internal only)
- intuition.library (functional change, extended preferences only)

The remaining 17 components remained unchanged.

As far as I can tell "functional change, internal only" most likely stands for "bug fixes and performance tweaks" and "size change, no functional changes" was likely the result of recompiling the code (after upgrading the compiler).

I had a closer look at dos.library, which at the time would contain the entire file system code. As far as I can tell, the most changes in the dos.library code occured in the file system portion. There are more than 80 changes (counting not the number of changed lines, but the number of change sets checked in) which both fix bugs and improve reliability, as well as improving performance.

As for the DiskDoctor command, it was updated to avoid "repairing" volumes formatted using FFS, and it shipped with Workbench 1.3.