Starting an unofficial Classic AmigaOS 4 FAQ

[DrValkyer]

"4. Can I use my PCI Expansion boards?

Yes, you can use expension boards such as the Mediator, Prometheus, Infinitive and RBM Onboard expanson cards. There are limitations with some peripherals
which use DMA to access memory and onboard cache which will not work on Amiga OS 4. "

So is there any possibility to hack AOS4 to use DMA? By AOS3 drivers or something??? Doesn't it mean then lack of PCI-sound? :-?

[Framiga]

apply this patch

http://aminet.net/util/boot/ToolsDaemon22.lha

to the 2.1a and it should work

[weirdami]

@AMV258

No! Those who benefit from the FAQ should pitch in and buy it for him!

Well, if that's how it works, then I'm starting a quad core mac pro FAQ right now!

[A4000_Mad]

Framiga wrote:
apply this patch

http://aminet.net/util/boot/ToolsDaemon22.lha

to the 2.1a and it should work

That has fixed it thank you very much Famiga :banana:

I did think about doing that this morning, but then I thought "Naaaa!"

Cheers for the nudge :pint:

[TetiSoft]

DrValkyer wrote:
"4. Can I use my PCI Expansion boards?

Yes, you can use expension boards such as the Mediator, Prometheus, Infinitive and RBM Onboard expanson cards. There are limitations with some peripherals
which use DMA to access memory and onboard cache which will not work on Amiga OS 4. "

So is there any possibility to hack AOS4 to use DMA? By AOS3 drivers or something??? Doesn't it mean then lack of PCI-sound? :-?

Have a look at the official OS4Classic compatibility list.
OS4 does support DMA, nobody needs to hack OS4 to use DMA,
however, the OS4 PCI drivers which require DMA to main
memory and which were included with OS4 for AOne are not
included with OS4Classic because the existing PCI solutions
for classic Amigas dont support DMA to main memory (and/or
dont support 3.3V only PCI cards). The GRex should support
DMA to main memory but OS4 cant support the GRex.

The Mediator supports DMA to gfx board memory, the existing
Elbox drivers use this feature and are copying the data
between main memory and gfx board memory. Its possible to
use the Elbox drivers when you disable all OS4 PCI drivers
and install a gfx board in the Mediator.

OS4Classic includes a driver for the Terratec 128i PCI
sound card, it is mentioned on the compatibility list.

Correct me when I'm wrong, I assume that PCI slots on
Infinitive and RBM daughter boards are "passive" slots
which require a PC bridgeboard to be usable, the Amiga
side cant access those PCI slots.

[A4000_Mad]

EDIT - reposted question elsewhere :-D

If you have any ideas or Q&A entries you have, can you reply here so I add them to the web site.

Q. Does your OS4 boot partition need to be within the first 4GB of the hard drive.

A. Yes

[TetiSoft]

A4000_Mad wrote:
Q. Does your OS4 boot partition need to be within the first 4GB of the hard drive.

A. Yes

This answer applies to the internal IDE port.
When the boot partition is e.g. located on a
SCSI drive and the FlashROM version of the device
driver has no 4GB problem, the answer would be "No".

[A4000_Mad]

Oh, ok thanks TetiSoft,

I learn it from a book :-D

AmigaOS4 Quickstart Guide wrote:

You should use a completely blank, freshly formatted partition, and it must be within the first four gigabytes of the drive (otherwise the ROM SCSI device may not find it). It must use a file system that allows long file names.

8-) Merry Xmas :pint:

[pjhutch]

Could any one provide me with the following information to add to my AOS 4 FAQ:

a) A complete feature list.
b) A Complete directory listing of the files as a text file(eg dir all >list.txt) of the CD.

Thanks!

Also, can anyone confirm the following?

a) AmigaOS 3.x can use Phase 5's ppc library and/or Haage & Partner's WarpUp library. Are either of these emulated in AOS 4 or does it have its own system for running pre-AOS4 PPC titles?

b) What graphics support does it use? P96 or CGFX or both?

c) Does it support 3D graphics? OpenGL, Warp3D?

[Framiga]

"a) AmigaOS 3.x can use Phase 5's ppc library and/or Haage & Partner's WarpUp library. Are either of these emulated in AOS 4 or does it have its own system for running pre-AOS4 PPC titles?"

Nope

"b) A Complete directory listing of the files as a text file(eg dir all >list.txt) of the CD."

a full dirlist on the net, is not a good idea if you ask me!

... P96 only  

[pjhutch]

Humm,

a) Which pre-OS4 PPC software can run on AmigaOS 4? Games? Apps? or will they have to be re-written?

b) I wasn't planning on uploading the list to the net, but will help me develop the FAQ further using it and answer any questions..

[MickJT]

The original ToolsDaemon gave one extra menu called 'Utils'. By some fluke I was able to add more titles which went right across the top of the Workbench screen.

It wasn't a fluke, it's a feature, you tick "Menu" to make it a new menu. Viola, now it's more than just "Utils".

As for getting it going under OS4, perhaps the OS3.9 update patches will help. There's also patches in the REMApollo archive.

[Methuselas]

A4000_Mad wrote:

Methuselas wrote:
You can use a trick menu editor that was, IMO way nicer than the original.

Do you mean like being able to right click anywhere on the screen to get a menu? You can do this in OS4 but with ToolsDaemon installed as well you have access to all those menus too.

No, it was a new Prefs prog for TD that was *WAY* easier and more efficient to use, than the original. I remember it had a bug or something, though. It only worked with the 2.1b version, but after 3.9 ToolsDaemon was no longer a hack. The changes H&P did made it useable as an actual commodity, if I remember correctly.

I don't remember, to be honest. My Amithlon drive was scavenged, 'cos I lost my Windoze boot drive.  :cry:

[amiga2000]

is it possible to run both amiga os3.9 and os4 from the same hard drive on an amiga 1200 system? I already have os3.9 set up on a 1200 with a blizzard ppc. I received the os4 cd this week, and was thinking to install it on the first partition, but I wanted to backup the os3.9 boot partition onto one of the other partitions.

After installing os4, if I power on the computer, it should reboot, reboot and go into os4. but if I access the early startup menu and select the partition with os3.9, that should work alternately, right?

[Framiga]

you can have AmigaOS3 9, AmigaOS4 and MOS for PowerUP on the same disk.

The only advice, since the 3 OSs installs some resident stuff, it would be better to switchOFF the system switching from an OS to the other (there are "tricks" to avoid this).

i.e If you give to AmigaOS4 the higher priority, to be able to boot in AmigaOS3.9, you have to enter in the EarlySS, chose the OS3.9 boot partition, disable the AOS4 partition doing all this 2 times (because AOS3.9 perform a second reboot at the setpatch)

[A4000_Mad]

Q. Does 'PicShow' with 'Thumb' work in OS4?

A. No



Q. Does 'PhotoAlbum' with 'CyberShow' work in OS4?



A. Yes :-)