Algor / Romulus FlashRom Software Luciferin Update 1.5

[platon42]

E3B and Chris Hodges are proud  to  announce  the  availability  of  a  new version  of  the  Luciferin  FlashRom  software for the Algor and Highway / Romulus expansion cards. It is a free update provided  as  service  to  all registered Algor/Romulus users.

Although the last update is nearly a  one  year  old,  nearly  all  of  the
reports  were positive and only a few requests have been made. The software was indeed ahead  of  its  time.  However,  developers  of  other  FlashRom solutions  have  planned  some  new features, which were missing in the old version of Luciferin. As usually, Algor and Romulus users are the first  to get   these  features  working  in  their  machines,  preserving  that  the Algor/Romulus continues to be to the best FlashRom solution on the market.

An absolutely new feature is the ability to now install a (possibly custom) Kickstart  ROM  image inside the FlashRom. It then can be enabled instantly at the first boot with the newly included AlgorKick module. AlgorKick  uses the  MapROM  option of the various phase5 cpu cards, most of the users have in their machines. The 512KB Kickstart image easily fits into the  FlashRom using  compression,  taking  less  than 300KB inside the FlashRom. There is still plenty room for lots of other modules! No need for BlizKick  anymore!

The following boards are supported by AlgorKick:
- Blizzard 1230-I/II/III/IV, 1230-T/ERC, 1260, 2040-ERC, 2060, and PPC
- Cyberstorm MKI/MKII/MKIII and PPC.
- (Commodore A3640 / Blizzard A4030 -- please ask)

Also, a new tool "HatchSentinel" has been included to generate  a  password protection  to the machine. Once installed in the FlashRom, it will present a password screen instantly after turning  the  machine  on.  The  Sentinel module  comes  with  various  options,  such  as  starting  itself  in  the background, so that the booting process is not delayed.

The Bootloader has been  improved  to  correctly  determine  the  Kickstart version  number  with  the  BoingBag2  exec.library  update.  This was only cosmetic, but was added on user demand. The loader now also comes in a  new "permanent" version, that will add RomTags only once, making it even faster than before.

Several other new RomTags have been added to the archive, such  as  modules to  disabled  the IDE controller to avoid unnecessary waiting (if you don't have any IDE devices connected). Or removing the bootmenu  for  secure  and even faster booting. Or SpeedRamsey, a contribution by Christian Sauer.

Luciferin, the user friendly  graphical  tool  for  handling  the  FlashRom
contents  has  become  even  better  and  will  now warn you, if you try to include a program that shouldn't be installed into the FlashRom.

This is the list of most improvements. The update will be emailed  free  of charge  to  registered  users the next days. Users of the Highway should be reminded that they still have the offer to update their card with a Romulus module, check out the IOSpirit website for details:
http://amiga.iospirit.de/index.php? mode=products&modmode=info&product_id=15&ios_lang=en

E3B and Chris Hodges hope that you will enjoy this update.

[platon42]

Well, AlgorKick is based on BlizKick and Piru knows about this. It is also started clearly in the manual, history and binary I do really appreciate his work because without it, there wouldn't be AlgorKick Simple as that.

[platon42]

@Framiga:
I am not aware about you being "my customer", therefore I consider this as a trolling attempt. I could start arguing about your snotty statement about me "playing with customers", but I reckon every word is wasted. Keep your morals to yourself.

[platon42]

@paul:
Excellent trolling, Paul. Get a life.

No, you don't need to be a customer. But such negative remarks about customer support, without even being a customer and not having experienced the support itself, is simply hypocracy. The Algor/Romulus software is not related to Poseidon in any way, nor with Elbox and their henchmen {bleep}ting on me over one year ago (!). Hence, framiga's comment was only meant to be a provocation and trolling. framiga claims to be speaking for *all* customers, as if the actual customers couldn't think and speak for themselves. This is simply arrogance and paternalism. And this, together with proposing that I was playing with the customers, which is a lie, really makes me upset.

This is not about free speech (sic!), nor about criticism. Criticism looks different. I don't know about th intention of the unnecessary statements from framiga, but in effect, he showed me his clear disrespect of my person in the context of giving out free updates for a software which doesn't even know or use.

[platon42]

@Morley:
> I read somewhere on E3B's homepage about the possibilty to use USB mice(HID) even within the early-startup menu.

Given you install Poseidon, the BoingBag2 bootmenu and the new input.device into the FlashRom, this will be working fine.

> Does this meen I can ditch my suffering mouse for ever? Or do some games and apps read the mouse directly so I need two mice on my desktop then?

Unfortunately, most games will disabled multitasking and use hardware hacking to read the mouse from the mouseport. These games will not work, unfortunately (except in UAE)

There are also very few applications that use hardware hacking for the left mouse button, which will also have some problems. But these are very rare.

> USB keyboard support would also be very cool! Is this possible or will it happen? If this could be done, the Algor's value for price factor will be very nice!

USB keyboards are supported for over two years. Poseidon comes with a very configurable HID class that allows to setup all kinds of actions for each key, including the multimedia keys.

You might want to have a look at http://www.platon42.de/poseidon.html for the list of supported USB hardware.