Idea: Compact Flash-based kickstart (and thus HDD) replacement?

[amigean]

Hi,

I saw this thread about installing new kickstart roms to A500s and this (probably silly) idea occurred to me: Would it be possible, using some dedicated hardware that translates Rom-signals to whatever-signals-flash-based-storage uses, to use compact flash cards in the place of normal roms (EPROMS?)?

/dream mode on

My totally uninformed reasoning goes like this: if the kickstart 'port' (more like header) on an amiga's motherboard can accept roms of a greater size than the ones it was designed for (say from 512kb to 1mb) then it could also accept more (say 4gb!). Provided someone could come up with the hardware (and a small software solution to simulate the real kickstart in the CF), then a world of possibilities opens up: Basically flash-based storage almost all amigas (with appropriate adapters for sockets), including those that have no HDD controller and storage solutions are expensive/awkward (esp. A500, CD32, CDTV etc).

I imagine that would be read-only though. But, since I'm dreaming, I imagine some clever hack would emerge to allow writing to it, possibly using some other interface.

If that's not possible, how about other flash-based solutions that plug onto 'vulnerable' parts of the motherboard (e.g. some custom chip that controls memory access?)

Hardware experts I want to hear your opinions! (be kind, I have no real understanding of electronics or low-level hardware mechanics)

[amigean]

thanks for the replies everyone,

so I guess I've got my answer: there seems to be agreement that the ROM header cannot possibly address more than 1MB so, my idea of using it for large-scale flash storage (akin to a HDD) is out of the question. Oh well, there's always AdIDE for A500s I guess.

I'm personally not that interested in changing the kickstart itself (I'm amazed that as much effort has gone into dedicated projects to do so), as kickstart switching hardware is abundant and the chips themselves do not seem to be in sort supply. Even when considering custom kickstarts, such as the fabled 3.9, I cannot imagine much more than marginal improvements in performance by having some of the OS in ROM (some of which may be offset by comparatively slower access times on fast systems).

If a way could be found though to add cheap flash based storage to all amigas, then this is a different story. I bet that a full commercial run of AdIDE68k (and a CD32 version of it) would be a huge success.