Which OS Would Be The Best Amiga Way Forward...

[Franko]

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@ Bloodline & Wawrzon

I didn't get a chance yet to try out Bloodlines ADF on one of my other miggies yet but I'll be testing it out shortly on an plain 030 & 060 A1200...

Hopefully this time it'll work and I'll let you know what the results are...

[Franko]

@ Bloodline & Wawrzon

Ok just tried to use Bloodlines ADF on the following setups but all with the same results:- Green Flash followed by a black screen, no floppy activity at all (not even a click in the floppy)...

Blizzard060/PCC 256MB RAM
Blizzard060 60Mhz 128MB RAM
Blizzard030 MKIV 50Mhz 64MB RAM
Blizzard030 MKIII 50Mhz 32MB RAM
GVP30 MKIV 50Mhz 4MB RAM
VIPER030 28Mhz 32MB RAM
MBX 1200z 4 & 8MB RAM
A1207 4 & 8 MB RAM

Thought I'd take a pic of me boards seen as I had dug them all out...

(just realised I've lost one me 4/8MB RAM boards, can't find it anywhere, how the frig can you lose a RAM Board... )

[Franko]

Weird, I have the same Blizz 030 mkIV with 32Meg

How long did you let it sit for? Also as soon as the machine resets get the softkick floppy out of the drive (the faster you can do this the better)!

Tried all sorts of things, waiting for up to 5 minutes, being as quick as possible taking the floppy out, inserting another bootable floppy as quickly as possible, tested it using two different A1200 motherboard revisions, tried it with 3.0 & 3.1 ROMS...

Strange thing is there is no sign of life on the floppy drive at all (ie: no lights or even the faintest of motor sounds or clicking noises) just the green flash then nothing... :confused:

[Franko]

I'll upload a newer build for you later.

Cheers Bloodline that would be much appreciated if you get the chance...

[Franko]

Which file systems are loaded from the boot disk ? Some seem to cause problems for AROS.

greets,
Staf.

On most of my Amigas it would be FastFileSystem V45 & SFS that are stored on the RDB...

But that doesn't seem to be the problem as the same thing happens when tested with Amigas with no HD connected...

[Franko]

IMHO any question should qualify the terms used in the question first.
If I asked you all for example "Do you believe in God? " I would expect a different reply depending upon how I defined the word "God". If I said "Do you believe in a giant man who sits on a cloud?" or "Do you believe in a conscious universe?" for example.
This being the case, I ask, what do you mean by "forward"? and how are you defining "Amiga"?
Tell me this and I can give you an opinion, until then I say PANCAKES!

Nah... it was a simple enough question really...

I leave talking about this Gawd geezer, thingy, wotsit for the Coffee House as he/it seems to pop in there quite often...

As for "forward" read "future"...

As for "Amiga" read "Whatever you consider to be an Amiga"...

As for "PANCAKES" then that'll do nicely...

[Franko]

The problem with AROS is lack of so many things. There isn't enough software. The looks aren't very slick at all, it feels more like OS 3.9 than a NG AmigaOS. Offcourse no way to run old software other than through UAE, at least with icaros there are folders, within folders, within folders to find an application.

I think that they got a long way to go before it will be good enough to compete with AOS or MOS.

Also different kind of icons everywhere makes it feel like something that was put together with bits and pieces from everywhere. It feels like a bad Linux distro.

Erm... I'm getting right confused here... :confused:

I was under the impression that I have simply been trying to get AROS to work on my Amiga's and it was nothing more than basically a ROM image file to replace the Amiga's real ROM into fast memory... :confused:

So if it is meant to be just that then why would It need to run UAE (as this would make the whole thing pointless on a real Amiga), I thought the whole point of AROS was to replace the original Amiga Kickstart ROM with a version that is copyright free and freely distributable and not some totally different version of the Amiga's OS like OS4 and MorphOS are...

If AROS 68k is going to be like OS4 or MorphOS then I think I'll give it a miss as I don't want my Amiga's looking like either of them... :confused:

[Franko]

@ Wawrzon & Hardwired

I thought so, it gets a wee bit confusing though when folk start talking of AROS & UAE together (I have to keep in mind that my main/only interest in AROS is on the 68k side of things)...

Having disassembled the real 3.1 ROMS years ago and modifying them for my own use it became clear to me that although the code in them was pretty efficient there was still quite a bit of scope left in them to be optimised a touch further...

For example there a couple of hundred lines of code in the 3.1 ROMS like these...

$f8e00 bra.l $f8e04
$f8e04 rts

or

$f8e00 bra.s $f8e02
$f8e02 rts

Now by simply changing all of these bra.l & bra.s to rts, then the cumulative effect (all be it in milliseconds) produces a very slight speed increase in the day to day execution of the ROMS routines (as SysInfo verifies) but just changing these also leave the the ROM 100% backward compatible...

There are other things I've changed in the ROMS I use including some patched with BlizzKick modules which all lead to an overall system speed increase when using ROM images and every bit of extra speed you can squeeze out of any Amiga system can only be a good thing...

But I believe AROS 68k is more aimed at producing a copyright free ROM image and adding/updating extra features into the ROM image that although this might not make it 100% compatible with all old programs/ games that make direct calls to specific ROM addresses the simple fact that it will be copyright free and may include improved/new features make it a very worthwhile way forward indeed especially for the like of the NatAmi which I really hope make it into production...

[Franko]

@ Bloodline

They're all the original Commodore A1200's, tried everything I could think of but all with no luck I'm afraid...

PS: Which language are the sources written in, if it's C then the sources are not for me, Assembly Language only for me when it comes to writing Amiga progs... (Course I could just disassemble the AROS 68K ROM image myself into assembler source and start from there...)


@ Kesa

No whinging here mate, what you call whinging, I call me being happy...

PS: how did you get on with "ginger"...


@ Smerf

Hi Smerf....

Nah... today's youth (well most of em) are best not to be spoken too, much better just to slap em round the head with a wet fish, doesn't make them any more wiser but it sure is fun...

To be honest I never told anyone with PC back in the old 8 & 3 days to do anything, for the simple fact I never spoke to anybods that was dumb enough to own a PC back then...

Cheers

Franko

[Franko]

bra.l is 020+ so I find this rather unlikely. You possibly meant bra.w or jmp ?


Just nitpicking, but bra.s *+2 instruction doesn't exist. ;-)

@ Piru

Sorry, I had just woke up and was still half asleep when I made that post...

Strictly speaking it was probably not accurate but on the other hand...

DevPAC which I use does allow you to enter the syntax "bsr.s" and most of the monitors & debuggers I use will display disassembled code as bsr.s $xxxxxx, I've yet to see a bit of disassembled code using monitors/debuggers that use "bsr.w" they always show up as "bsr.l" or bsr.s"...

However now I am wide awake then here's a better explantion of what I was talking about...

As far as I recall of the top of my head there were over 160 pieces of code in the 3.1 ROMS that I changed to give this miniscule speed increase and they covered things like.... (the addresses used are just for show here)

$f80000 jsr $xxxxxx
$f80006 rts

which I changed to
$f80000 jmp $xxxxxx
$f80006 rts

and

$f80000 jsr $1e(a6)
$f80004 rts

Which I changed to
$f80000 jmp $1e(a6)
$f80004 rts

and

$f80000 bsr $xxxxxx
$f80004 rts

Which I changed to
$f80000 bra $xxxxxx
$f80004 rts

As I say there were well over 160 such occurrences in the ROM and changing all of these like I did produced (all be it a very small) speed increase in the ROMS performance. It was only done as a test many years ago but as it worked perfectly without causing any incompatibilities or errors I have stuck with them over the years...

PS: I would have replied sooner but the site seems to be having a hairy fit at the moment...

[Franko]

@ Iggy

That's the way I see it myself, I'm not an AROS user but I do see it as the best way forward for future developments of things like the NatAmi and that's what I based my answer upon...

[Franko]

Hi Smerf...

Very interesting to read a report from someone who has checked out all 3... have to say your conclusion at the end seems to be pretty reasonable for now with regard to OS3.5 & 3.9, although I still think AROS will solve a lot of problems in the future (if it ever gets completed and stable) for things like the NatAmi...

Cheers

Franko


@Iggy

Could you clarify what suspicions you have had confirmed please...

[Franko]

You aint gonna believe this but...

I've just found another shiny silver teaspoon inside an old shoe under me bed...

I found it when I was chasing a spider that ran under there after it stole me pizza...

We're happy... are you happy...