Software for building custom Kickstart

[fiat1100d]

Hello!

This is my first post here and I hope this is the right forum for this subject :-)

I would like to program a couple of EPROMs for my A4000T with a custom 3.9 Kickstart, since now I have been using a "3.5" ROM (made with an Exec patch found on the net) for a while but would like to have in ROM the very latest updates from the AmigaOS ROM Update file.

So, does it exist a piece of software which, given a base Kickstart ROM file (in my case, the A4000T's 40.70), can extract from it the various parts (e.g. devices), then let you substitute them with new code (e.g. newer Exec and devices), finally assembling a file which can be programmed into ROM?

I hope my English is quite understandable, thank you!

[fiat1100d]

Well I just built a 1 MB ROM file using Remus, now I am going to burn it into a couple of 27C400s, I hope it will work fine :-) In case of success I would produce a 3.9 for my A1200 too!
Otherwise I will have a look at that thread, thank you guys!

[fiat1100d]

motorollin wrote:
Is the A4000s Kickstart ROM 1MB in size?

No it is 512 KB however there should be provision for 1 MB ROM code. At least, I hope so... This is because on the A600 the ROM socket has two more pins, for using larger ROMs, so maybe the A4000 can, too.

[fiat1100d]

motorollin wrote:
So does the A1200, but it won't use it. The extra 512K will be ignored.

I thought I managed to get a 512 KB 3.9 working on my A1200, (much better for "debug" than the A4000T, one doesn't have to mess with the CPU board). I say I tought because I get the insert disk screen, yes, but if I start to load a floppy then it reboots with "Software failure" :-(
Same if I connect an hard disk...

Will also try with 1 MB, but it is a pity if it doesn't work :-(

[fiat1100d]

motorollin wrote:
The only way to get more than 512KB in your Kickstart ROM is if you use exec from the CD32 ROM (which does have a 1MB ROM).

Interesting... Who knows if AmigaOS ROM Update contains an updated version of the CD32 Exec too?

As for the hanging problem, what does your ROM image contain, and what did you try to run? Did you follow my instructions exactly, including the operations in WinHex and the swap byte operation before burning the chips?

Well I had actually missed the "shell", which is a required component :-) As for the operations, I do them under DOS with the utilities of my burner.
Now I have a 512 KB 3.9 ROM containing all the A1200-related updates from OS 3.9 Boing Bag 2, less the workbench.library loaded from hard disk thanks to FindWB from A4000T ROM, plus some BlizKick fix.

Next step, the A4000T release  8-)

[fiat1100d]

motorollin wrote:
I would be interested to hear how you get on with this, since I will hopefully be changing my A1200 for an A4000D fairly soon. Are the chips the same?

Ok it works on A4000T too. Yes the chips are the same, I use 27C400 EPROMs, filled with two copies of the ROM...

Doobrey wrote:
2. The CD32 exec doesn't display a guru on reset, it just restarts as if nothing happened. I've done a patch to modify all other exec's to allow a 1MB ROM to work, I'll stick it on the site later if anyone's interested.

I would be very interested, since in that way I could have everything in ROM without having to load from hard disk, plus some more storage space in case I install new hardware with ROMmable drivers :-)

[fiat1100d]

Thank you, will try as soon as I can, and hopefully 1 MB ROM will work, that would be VERY nice! :-D

[fiat1100d]

Well yesterday evening I tried making a 1 MB ROM for the A1200 and it didn't work, got a black screen :-(

As for no workbench.library, it was standard with A4000T (space was needed for the built-in A4091 device) so its ROM has a small component called FindWB which is supposed to look for workbench.library in the LIBS drawer. With newer Amiga OS, however, an updated workbench.library is loaded so the one built into ROM is not required really.

[fiat1100d]

Ok, maybe I made a working combo of 512 KB Kickstart plus 512 KB Extended ROM, at least, WinUAE does load it and if I boot with no startup-sequence, well, the workbench.library I put into the Extended ROM is correctly seen (I removed the one from LIBS drawer of course).

Now if I want to try burning the files into EPROM, which one should be first, the KS code or Extended code?
As for the bases, I left F80000 for KS and used E00000 for Extended, is this right?

[fiat1100d]

Doobrey wrote:
The extended rom must also have the example romheader added as the first module (this just makes the CPU start the code in the 'normal' ROM first, which then adds anything found in the 'extended' part)

Hi! If I try to add "romheader", the Remus gives me an error which says "No resident found." :-(

It is the one into the others drawer, am I right?

[fiat1100d]

Tried and Remus doesn't start anymore :-?
Does it need some additional component? My software setup is quite basic... I noticed there is an icon tooltype

XVS=YES

Will eventually have a look with SnoopDOS.

[fiat1100d]

Doobrey wrote:
Ooops #2
 I'd added some stuff that uses popupmenu.library.I just checked the code and saw a comment reminding myself to add an error message before exiting :roll:

It seems that wbstart.library is needed too. Now I managed to get that latest beta working, will try burning ROMs during the weekend.

[fiat1100d]

Ok! Managed to get the extended part of ROM working! :-D
However for having it recognized I had to disable MAPROM feature on my Blizzard 1230-IV. If I left it enabled, the system would boot from Kickstart 3.9 but won't see the extended part containing workbench.library

I noticed that software like SysInfo still reports the Kickstart ROM as 512 KB.

Do you know if it is possible to add in ROM a keymap? It would be nice for me to have the Italian keymap also when not executing Startup-Sequence.

[fiat1100d]

Of course I will have to do some more tests before confirming the 3.9 ROM as the one I will use for my Amigas as the final one :-)

Will try the keymap program, thank you!

[fiat1100d]

Hello,

I resume this thread after more than a year... Meanwhile, I solved some problems I had with my EPROM burner, finished part of the University... And now I am here again for completing the final 3.9 ROMs for my systems :-)

Does anyone know if the "ROMUpdate" module from Boing Bag 2 is really required for a 3.9 ROM to be complete? I mean, I tested on my A1200 a ROM without it and, deleting "AmigaOS ROM Update", it boots just fine, but by displaying the contents of that modules it shows the text

ROM Update Expansion Fix

and that there is no expansion.library updated module (it still is version 40.2 from 1993), I wonder if ROMUpdate does  anything useful other than, as I suppose, letting setpatch know that the "AmigaOS ROM Update" has been loaded.

Thanks!