RamDisk the DoubleEged Sword

[jeffimix]

.. or just really annoying.

Do the Ram Disk's contents in an Amiga get lost (like I rather suspect they do) when you turn it off. My Windows PC does that. Oh and, Windows doesn't like the RAM thing, but it lives with it, and can even access the drive.

[blobrana]

Yes, but it will survive a warm reset.

[Billsey]

You're thinking about the RAD Disk, not the RAM Disk. The RAM Disk is lost with every and any reset. The RAD Disk should survive a warm reset, but doesn't always survive them.

[jeffimix]

Not being an Amiga owner that confused me.  I knew you could use Ram in Amiga for files(like I do in my old windows Pc, I don't think my new one does it, sort of a DOS utility), but I wasn't sure how you could possibly could reset it and keep the data (which I've heard mentioned a couple times on websites). So thank you.

[Spidey]

Hello jeffimix,

Are you emulating an Amiga or did you buy one?

Like Billsey said, if you mount the RAD:-drive you can use that one, even with a warm reset.
Problem is if you got:

- accelerator card in with extra memory (fast ram)
- and/or you've got instructions in your startup-sequence to change stuff in ROM (this causes extra resets during startup).

Then you "loose" the extra memory during warm resets and this ofcourse results in loosing your RAD:-drive.

Spidey

statram --- see aminet

[Atheist]

Here's the deal, it took like a week of working this out, but, even then I'm not exactly sure.

Ram: for sure is eliminated on reset or power down, power up. That I realised right away.

Rad: works in 2 ways.
1. On soft re-boot, it survives

2. It can be set up to survive only 1 OR unlimited soft re-boots. This is the part I seem to have come to a conclusion on.

I have it automated in a script file so can't remember how it works, but, if you copy over all of the AOS files to the rad:  do a re-boot, then the OS is completely ram resident. No accesses to the hard drive will occurr.  :-D
Unless you start programs that are still on the HD or the default sub directories are there, in the programs.

You have to change startup-sequence and startupII. It's the assign statements, to "assign c: Rad:c".
I think that's how I did it.

If you want exact info, I'll look it up and post it. Tell me AOS version, model, cpu, and amout of ram.

I believe for it to work, you also have to "Install Rad: boot".

AmigaOne! This it NOT possible on muc, and windrawls rubbish!

[jeffimix]

Currently I only use emulation. I'm thinking of (if I could find a cheap one) buying an old Amiga, for funsies.  If the new Amiga gets the software I need, then that'd probably be my next computer. As it is though, I find Amigas a very interesting kind of computer. nothing else has can run an OS off of RAM, and neither Mac nor windows are very streamlined, which irks me, they just run slow and buggy.

Oh and atheist, wow thats al ot of information, RAD seems very interesting.... and useful.

[Billsey]

For those of you with accellerators and FastRAM only on the accellerator card, check AmiNET for a little jewel named FastRAD.

[jeffimix]

Hmm, do does the RAD Disk work like my Palm's memory. Since turning a Palm Pilot off and on is really a warm reset.

[Atheist]

Thanks for that info, Billsey

Hello jeffimix,

Yes, warm reset no prob., but if you turn off the Amiga, it is gone.

One more IMPORTANT thing to know is, a RAD: holds a fixed amount of information, and has to be set in the
devs/mounlist
file. in positive ODD numbers. If you set it to 79, that is the EXACT same size as a Floppy disk=880K.

As far as I know, you can't make more than 1 with the original OS. I got a RRD: from a magazine coverdisk a long time ago, that was really cool. It allowed up to 32 RAD: disks, AND they grew and shrank to a maximum preset size.

I love putting games in the RAM: disk, but MOST copy protected games won't work like that. You have to use the RAD: Renaming the RAD: is really tricky too. I had alot of problems with getting that just right (only important when trying to trick games to run in the RAD:)

I used a hex editor on "Defender of the Crown" so that I could play it in the RAD: and, let me tell you, if people SAW that in 1988, they'd of had a heart attack. Everything happenong RIGHT AWAY, section to section of the game. I'm not an expert, I just found a couple of disk references, and replaced them. I didn't break the copy protection on disk one or anything. I could explain that too (not breaking copy protection but DotC, Hack).

BTW, don't anybody get excited, I HAVE THE ORIGINAL.

That's probably when I first found out about the RAD: being erased on a second re-boot. But I believe I saw something about a setting to make it survive multiple re-boots.

Billsey's reference to that other RAD: should definitely be looked at.

I don't think linux could do this either (OS in Ram).

AmigaOne! Back to the GOOD old days!!!

[Billsey]

Normally when the Amiga resets, it does a RAM test on the memory at boot-up. There are exceptions though, like when the OS sets a KICKROMTAG (I think) for a particular area of RAM. When that happens, that area of RAM is not subjected to the test on a warm reset. This allows that area of RAM to continue holding the data it held before the reset.

With the RAD disk, this only works for RAM that the Kickstart ROM image knows about, thus leaving out those accellerators that came out after the creation and release of that ROM image.

There is a utility on AmiNET (FastRAD) that can be used to set the appropriate TAGS to allow the RAD disk to work in the accellerator's onboard RAM even if it wouldn't before using FastRAD.