Does having 3.1 ROMS. . . .

[Edpon]

Hi,
   Just was wondering if Having the 3.1 ROMS or Kickstarts, I forget which it's called, installed in your computer, (anyone of your choice), preclude you from booting up or using the 1.3 needed for older Amiga games and programs? Thanks.

Ed

[jj]

it does not stop you, but can and does cause problems with some software and games written for 1.3.

you have a few options

If you have a harddisk you can use whdload(available on aminet) to install the games to harddisk, these installers usually fix problems with running 1.3 games under 3.1

depending on which amiga you have you can get a kickstart switcher so you can two sets of roms in your machine and swap between the two.

if you have an acccelerator in you amiga made by blizzard you can you a program called blizkick to install older kickstarts in its memory

or the final choice you can use utilities which try and degradde your machine to 1.3, these ten to have limited success

[MskoDestny]

You could also by something like the KickFlash or eFlash which allow you to store Kickstart images in flash memory. Kickflash is Zorro II and eFlash is Zorro III, so you can't use them in an A1200 without some kind of busboard.

[darksun9210]

or you could have Relokick, or softkick which puts a rom image in the bottom section of memory and allows a soft reset to read the 1.3 rom image in ram instead of the actual 3.1 rom off the mainboard.

probably on aminet or somewhere.
i seem to rememnber a fair chance of success using it, but not 100% depending on processor and chipset.

1.3 rom will only initialize hardware it understands, so even on an AGA chipset 040+ machine it works.

[Will-i-am]

I have booted off my 1.3 workbench when my 3.1 workbench went screwy on me and the HD as well. I used it to get to my HD tools to see what had happened. Everything seemed to work okay, as long as the programs involved had worked previously under 1.3, like Photon Paint 2. In a similar vein what would happen if you had 3.1 roms and installed 1.3 or even 3.0 OS? I mean without reformatting the HD for instance? I've always gone upwards with OSs and lately something came up which got me thinking. Probably a bad thing, eh?

[Piru]

@Will-i-am

Bad idea. You'll end up with crippled system.

If you really want to install 1.3, you need to wipe traces of the OS 3.x first. Even then, some parts of the 1.x will misbehave with too fresh KS ROM.

WB 3.0 will work just fine on KS 3.1 though, but you'll miss couple of fixes SetPatch 40.x added, and obviously the features added in WB 3.1 over 3.0.

[motrucker]

Piru wrote:


WB 3.0 will work just fine on KS 3.1 though, but you'll miss couple of fixes SetPatch 40.x added, and obviously the features added in WB 3.1 over 3.0.

Why go back to this buggy, backward OS for any reason? Doesn't make sense.
With all of the ideas to allow using an older OS, none really work well across the board. These days it's a better idea to buy an old A1000 (or A500) that is really 1.3 to use beside your newer Amiga. I bought a complete A1000 system for $20.00 that plays the old games quite well.

[Piru]

@motrucker

Why go back to this buggy, backward OS for any reason? Doesn't make sense.

No reason. Will-i-am just wondered what would happen.

In some cases you migth need to start the system from older Workbench (probably emergency situations). It these cases it's good to know what you can and can't do.

[Will-i-am]

Actually, I wondered what would happen, what was possible, and my 3.1 disks seem to have errors galore, leaving me with 2.1, 3.0 and 1.3 workbench sets(I also have 3.9 but only the tower seems to be able to make a CD drive work... sigh). As far as buying a new Amiga to add to my collection, I already have 3 A2000's, two of which still have parts enough to run, just not display... as my two working monitors are on the A4000T and the A4000D(Making a total of 5 Amigas). I'm trying to get an AGA game box, so 3.0 may have to supply that with an OS... an AGA graphics/internet box, which will likely be the one running 3.9, ie the Beast in the Tower... and an A2000 running the old 1.3 OS so games like Rocket Ranger, Wings, Zombie Apocalypse and so forth, can run.... and finally a fairly fast A2000 running os 2.1 just because I have it.. 8-) I don't think I have a need to buy any more hardware except that which will enable each machine to have a monitor.