Hypothetical Kickstart ideas

[Jeff]

There was a different set of Diagnostic Kickstart roms made for the A1200 I believe. I have seen them for sale before. I almost bought a set just out of curiosity but I sold my A1200.

[freqmax]

Diagnostic Kickstart ROM ..?

Diagnosing specifically the A1200 hardware I suppose?

[little]

Doesn't the AmigaOS license explicitly prohibit even clean reverse engineering?

It doesn't matter what M$ lawyers says, a contract enacted when you open the box where the install media of an operative system is packaged is not a binding contract.

Also, I rememeber the #$%& DMCA has a clause that allows reverse engeniering of hardware that is no longer produced and guess what, it has been more than a decade since an amiga with a kickstart rom was last manufactured.

[orb85750]

Is there an assumption here that the legal rights to OSx.x are holding back anything?  Cannot the ROM images/software be purchased very cheaply "per machine" via Ainc (via Cloanto?) -- for far less than a PC manufacturer purchases Windoze?  (Disclaimer: Maybe I've been staring at my computer screen far, far too long today.)  

[Piru]

@save2600

I was just thinking emulation would/could have been more practical had it been written on and for more of a hardware level than software.

Putting something to KS ROM doesn't make it any more "hardware level" than having it as a separate program to run. ROM is just read only memory to store software to.

[KimmoK]

I would like to see a kickstart replacement that would accelerate the booting of AOS3.9 machines & classic PPC machines. (my 68k A4000 does two resets to patch the kickstart before it loads up, it makes the booting 3x slower)

[save2600]

Right - like a Kickstart with the latest patches burned into a neat and tidy ROM. Has anyone actually burned their own EEPROM like this or is everyone content with the annoying patch and reset scenario?

[Damion]

save2600 wrote:
Right - like a Kickstart with the latest patches burned into a neat and tidy ROM. Has anyone actually burned their own EEPROM like this or is everyone content with the annoying patch and reset scenario?

Burning an EPROM with the BB2 updates (and other fun things) is fairly straightforward, check doobreynet for the tools and docs.

[amigaksi]

>by Piru on 2009/5/11 0:53:51

>@save2600
>Quote:

>    I was just thinking emulation would/could have been more practical had it been written on and for more of a hardware level than software.


>Putting something to KS ROM doesn't make it any more "hardware level" than having it as a separate program to run. ROM is just read only memory to store software to.

For Atari ST, it would make it more hardware level since the TOS would be residing at same memory location as original TOS on Atari ST ($FC0000) so software accessing OS functions wouldn't require any address translation.  They should be able to run full-throttle (7.16Mhz instead of 8Mhz).  And if they re-compile the ST executables and filter out the direct I/O calls like $FFFF9201 to vector to Amiga software equivalents, they should also be able to run stuff that directly accesses hardware ports.  However, that would be a more challenging program to write.

[freqmax]

There's an alternative to filter direct I/O calls inside software. Scan the memory location residing at the same location as the I/O port and update any hardware with it.

[KimmoK]

@save2600
Another way could be a very simble BIOS ROM that kicks the AOS/AROS running from the HDD. That way we could have the latest kickstart on the HDD & faster boot. And AROS only machines would not be dependant on ROM that AmigaInc owns.

[amigaksi]

>by freqmax on 2009/5/12 9:02:42

>There's an alternative to filter direct I/O calls inside software. Scan the memory location residing at the same location as the I/O port and update any hardware with it.

But then you have to determine the maximum frequency, freqmax, for updating those i/o ports.  For example, joystick ports and paddles can be read at any time; others may not require an update that frequently, for which your algorithm is good.

I was thinking scanning the graphics memory area to fix up the image.  I.e., map the graphics memory to the same area as STs so ST writes full throttle to the graphics memory and then update/fix the image during VBI before making it visible.

[recidivist]

 Apple went from ROM chips to files on the CD/DVD that are installed onto the hard drive.
 Tandy/Radio Shack once promoted DOS in ROM as a way of preventing virus problems;they dropped it by the time DOS 4 came along.
 So it's no giant deal either way.
 I think perhaps the thought of  having universal hardware ,and then plugging in a personality module is very attractive but perhaps only the hobbyist or rearcher will ever see one.

[freqmax]

amigaksi, I know my update-I/O suggestion have serious drawbacks. But so has other approaches to. The only really clean path is FPGA
VBI is however a suitable opportunity to update at.

recidivist, Personality module.. well have a look at the FPGA systems (Minimig, C-One, Fpgaarade etc..). There a simple binary can change the actual hardware and software instantly.

[NorthWay]

>besides some of the modern Kickstart patches and hacks, has anyone ever bothered to write a totally new and non-Commodore type "Kickstart"?

Check out Dragon's Lair.

[save2600]

I don't get it. What's the game got to do with Kickstart?