FPGA Replay Board

[Iggy]

The FPGA color should be that sicking brown/green/grey that you get when you mix all of the playdoh colors together.

Aros isn't going to fear the Replay.  It will end up being the official Amiga compativle OS for the FPGA camp.

,,,when its finished wake me up....zzzzzzz

[Iggy]

This board should meet the requirements for what the Aros68K version is already running on if I am not mistaken.  It may not be 'finished', but it is running.  I also think that the guys from WinUAE have delivered enough that we could give them the benefit of the doubt.

Yep, WinUAE works (pretty well actually). AROS? When is the X86 version going to be at v1.0?
Running, no I want it running correctly. The X86 version has enough faults, the 68K version is no where near as polished.
No software package is ever finished, until its discontinued there's always something that need work or improvement.
But the goal you're looking for is years away.

[Iggy]

But you dont have to wait for the entire 68k branch of AROS to catch up with X86 version.   Once the replacemnet ROM done thats all that really needed at first

There is a point I hadn't considered. And it points to a big difference between the X86 and 68K ports.
Your actually waiting for something that doesn't exist in the X86 realm.

[Iggy]

The 68k version can run Amiga Basic. What more do you want? :lol:

ROM based BASIC that they had on really early IBM PCs. I can't even remember that name of that product.:hammer:

Why is a kickstart ROM important? Couldn't new hardware use flash memory as a replacement? Obviously, legacy hardware would have limitation with a larger replacement that wouldn't fit in a ROM, but why would you worry about the size of the replacement for new systems?

[Iggy]

ROM in the case of AROS is just used as a catch-all phrase for a single binary that contains all the basic functionality needed to get the system to work with apps that expect the same functionality as an original Amiga kickstart ROM, and that *can* be put in a ROM or flash (e.g. they don't try to write to anywhere in the image, and only uses memory that's explicitly been allocated from RAM).

I don't think anyone would try to produce actual ROM chips - you're right that using flash is a better alternative. Even for classics, a ROM replacement holding a flash chip would be better than producing an actual ROM, so it's easily updated.

So why in the world do I keep seeing posts related to the ROM size limitations of specific Amiga models?

[Iggy]

Because those limitations are limitations you'll also run into if you try to replace the kickstart ROM with a tiny "drop-in" board with a flash chip on, as well as limits you'll run into if you use any number of solutions that remap RAM copies of the kickstart. It's also a limitation of Minimig, for example - don't know about the Replay board.

So in other words, if you want to be able to use the kickstart images on real classics or Minimig's without more complicated new expansions you have to restrict the size of the kickstart image whether you want to actually put it in ROM or not.

That's a frightening hardware limitation.
No wonder I've always settled for only partial compatibility.

I'm sure they'll figure something out.

[Iggy]

I think it was more an issue for the original Minimig with 2MB RAM! But assuming that all Minimig owners have sorted out a Kickstart, and that not many new Minimigs will get made with FPGAArcade and NatAmi arriving on the scnee, I guess we don't need to worry so much about Kickstart sizes in future.

So, again, this is an issue with legacy hardware only.
Guess what guys, legacy hardware really may finally be completely obsolete.
(get ready for the, I'm only a collector/retro hobbyist posts).

"I like hamburger b 'cause I'm into pain!"

[Iggy]

Well explained. But makes this me want a FLASH ROM for my classics more so than really needing AROS ( we is largely about getting free from copyright ), much like what DENEB offers. If I have the power / control to pick and choose binaries (boingbags) to execute and boot up, why do I need AROS? it's "AROS" not "AROM". I want to be free of the ROM constraints, not the OS...

Well said man. What does AROS bring to the party that might be attractive to a user of legacy hardware?

How about being "free of the ROM constraints"?

[Iggy]

EEPROM flashable/Relokick-able custom ROMs for one.

Will that give them large ROM capacities?

[Iggy]

Just that the Goose has asked to be freed from ""ROM constraints" when we were discussing Eprom/Rom size limitations.
I think Bloodline's answer helps sum up my misconception, "There seems to be some odd ideas as to what an AROS ROM is...".
I assumed that there were size constraints inherent in ROM or Eprom approaches that limited the size of the software that could be stored there and was wondering if they'd come up with a tactic to circumvent this limitation or if the AROS kickstart software was truly going to have to be contained within these small ROM.

I'd always assumed there would be someway to load this to RAM and not have to deal with a size limitation.
Is it an issue of how much space a Kickstart ROM can be mapped to or other problem?

[Iggy]

The AROS "ROM" gets you free of copyright issues, and is thus very important to users of FPGA Amigas and emulators.

It can also provide new features for classic Amigas if used, although there are also projects out there that rebuild the classic Kickstarts with bugfixed, up to date features too. However with the 1MB ROM limit (or 512KB for some) it's always going to be a squeeze on a classic Amiga.

If you have an A1200 or A4000, you've got a ROM already and don't need to worry. If you like you can use a patched Amiga Kickstart instead. AROS is just an interesting thing, not a necessity.

Thanks. The first part I kind of already understood. And the rest helps somewhat.
Does that mean that in older Amigas there no way past a 512KB limit?
And if the later Amigas have 1MB ROM does that mean that an AROS kickstart will be easier to create for them or offer more features?

[Iggy]

Can you point me to one of these projects? I don't know diddly about EPROM burning/programing but I'm getting quite interested, even just to learn about it. And from above, I was focused on classics in thought, not FPGAs

AROS + FPGA, makes sense, extends functionality.
AROS + classic, case isn't as strong for the end user / consumer, IMO

@nicholas, good I see you get my point.

I can point you to people who do EPROM burning for a very minimal cost (so low that even if I could do it, I'd pay for it).

And the above was kind of the focus of what I've been asking:

"And from above, I was focused on classics in thought, not FPGAs

AROS + FPGA, makes sense, extends functionality.
AROS + classic, case isn't as strong for the end user / consumer, IMO"

Nicholas has mentioned bringing new features to the bootstrap process (like RTG) in custom ROMs/Eproms and I get that.
It would allow features to be enabled before a floppy or whdload, w/o having to but AROS68K loaded from a drive.
But as a full AROS68K should be loadable from a drive, are there any other specific advantages?

[Iggy]

Jason already started on "wanderer lite" he called it workbook iirc. =]

Yes, I know the original ROMS are flashable, but these last two posts help make things clearer still.

So, except for the workbench replacement, everything will fit?

And as far as size limitations, I wasn't suggesting this:
"it'd be pretty sucky to put in a replacement ROM/flash on an A500 and  have to boot a second stage image from floppy before you can boot a disk"

I was thinking more toward a larger banked EPROM that could appear as a 512KB or 1MB ROM but hold more when booting.

[Iggy]

Here's a useful post, made by one of the two main developers of the AROS 68k branch, Jason McMullan:
http://www.minimig.net/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=372

Couple of quotes from the post:
In other words, yes, in time.

Interesting. Anyone here try the builds referenced?

[Iggy]

Yet another stupid question in reference to this post on another thread.

Hey, I still use the disks to start my A1000.  Main reason is I have so many old games that will not boot under  anything higher than 1.3 (1.2 in several cases!). I need to figure out  how to add the ROM, AND still be able to boot from floppy.

 So some people are booting from floppy anyway to load old revisions for game compatibility.
Willing AROS offer better compatibility, or the ability to boot to a floppy?

[Iggy]

If you were to place such a hypothetical board in the ROM socket, it'd need to implement logic for bank switching. Not impossible, but it'd be messy. E.g. you could have some tiny bootstrap logic copy the initial 512K or 1MB to RAM, and have some logic set up so that attempts to read/write a specific address in the ROM address space trigger a change in additional address lines on your card. But if you want to do that, then you *need* to copy the contents to RAM, as there's no way to make the whole image available at the same time via the ROM socket if it exceeds the size limit.

A device on the Zorro bus, like a Deneb for example, is probably a better option then.

Your last comment is valid, but I like the idea you mentioned in the first paragraph. The delay would be minimal and it would solve the size issue.