Which OS and ROMs should I be running?

[blanning]

So it appears that I have 2.04 roms and version 1.3 of the os.  Which version should I upgrade to on my 2000?  I have a 68030-33, 2 megs of chip ram, and 16 megs of ram.  If I'm reading things right, it would be a kickstart 3.1 rom and version 3.1 of the os?

I'm eventually planning on a buddha and a new hard drive.  iirc, I can put the new 3.1 rom on the buddha board, right?

brian

[Matt_H]

With your current setup, you should be running OS 2.1.

A 3.1 ROM can be installed in the motherboard, followed by an installation of the 3.1 software.

[Tenacious]

I've always felt that Amiga OS became much more polished and mature starting with OS 2.1.  It's the minimum OS for me and over half of my machines use it.

[weirdami]

@Tenacious

It's the minimum OS for me

CYBORG!

[blanning]

So 2.1 or 3.1?  What's different between them?  Is there a compelling reason to use one over the other?

brian

[mike-]

Its newer and alot of apps depend on it.

Course, you could just softkick to 3.1

[alexh]

mike- wrote:
Course, you could just softkick to 3.1

Depends if his 030 accelerator board has an MMU. You cannot softkick (for OS usage) without an MMU

[blanning]

alexh wrote:

mike- wrote:
Course, you could just softkick to 3.1

Depends if his 030 accelerator board has an MMU. You cannot softkick (for OS usage) without an MMU

It's this one:

http://www.amiga-hardware.com/showhardware.cgi?HARDID=177

The PLCC version.  Looks like there's a jumper for mmu enable/disable, but I can't find it on the board.  Is it with one of the other chips?  Should be a 68852, right?

brian

[alexh]

I think it's INSIDE the 030.

Either you have an EC030 (no MMU) or a full 030 (with MMU)

MMU jumper (J3) is in the bottom centre of the board near the edge connector.

Dunno what MMU support there is for this card in software...

[blanning]

It's 68030FE33B.

brian

[alexh]

This is not a board I am familiar with, having a full 030 stands you in good stead, but the most famous tool "BlizKick" does not claim to support this board.

[amigadave]

It depends on what you want to do with your A2000 brian?

If you just want to play all the old games and public domain software, stay with the 2.1 ROM and OS and you will be able to run most things.  Some older games were broken with the move to version 2 of the ROMs and OS and only work on OS1.3, or for an even fewer, they require OS1.2 or earlier.

If you want to see what the latest and greatest version of the AmigaOS3.9 looks like, I suggest you get a good graphics card and the fastest CPU with the most RAM you can get, but at least 32mb RAM.

Otherwise, with your current 030, 2mb Chip & 16mb Fast RAM, I would stay with AmigaOS2.1, or move up to 3.1 and get a ROM switcher with a 1.3 Kickstart ROM to play the older games.

You could also softkick into what ever ROM you want if you have the files and your MMU is supported.

[CLS2086]

move up to 3.1 and get a ROM switcher with a 1.3 Kickstart ROM to play the older games.

+1 ! very usefull  ;-)

[blanning]

i'll try the softkick.  I intend to get a buddha board at some point with flashrom.  That might be an easy way to downgrade.  Also, depending on the situation, I may end up with a 1000 or 500 at some point anyway.  I'm trying to buy the 1000 on craigslist at the moment, but the guy won't respond to me.

I have a black hole of amiga knowledge in my head.  I stopped using my 500 right around when the aga machines came out.  I never upgraded.  So there's a lot of hardware history I don't know.  Thanks for bearing with me.

brian

[alexh]

What software are you going to use?? I dont think your accelerator has the tools to use the MMU for softkicking.

But I am probably wrong... I remember something about GVP called FaastROM which was something to do with this...