FPGA Replay Board

[Iggy]

EEPROM flashable/Relokick-able custom ROMs for one.

Will that give them large ROM capacities?

[TheGoose]

EEPROM flashable/Relokick-able custom ROMs for one.

You mean like this:



Offer us something that is already being done?
(These German guys are badasses over at the a1k.org)

[bloodline]

There seems to be some odd ideas as to what an AROS ROM is... All Amigas need Kickstart software to boot, AROS aims to offer a free open source alternative to the copyrighted Kickstart software produced by Commodore and licenced by various companies since.

Apart from the A1000, the Kickstart software for the Amiga was stored on ROM and thus has always been refered to as the "ROM"...

As a classic Amiga user, AROS Kickstart software offers you an updated Kickstart that may include features unavailable (built in RTG for example) in the original software.

[nicholas]

You mean like this:



Offer us something that is already being done?
(These German guys are badasses over at the a1k.org)

Erm.... That's nothing new, we've been ables to flash custom binary EEPROM kickstarts for a long time now.

Custom (as in, we have the source to customise) AROS kickstarts are a much nicer prospect.

[nicholas]

Will that give them large ROM capacities?

No, why would you think it might?

[Iggy]

Just that the Goose has asked to be freed from ""ROM constraints" when we were discussing Eprom/Rom size limitations.
I think Bloodline's answer helps sum up my misconception, "There seems to be some odd ideas as to what an AROS ROM is...".
I assumed that there were size constraints inherent in ROM or Eprom approaches that limited the size of the software that could be stored there and was wondering if they'd come up with a tactic to circumvent this limitation or if the AROS kickstart software was truly going to have to be contained within these small ROM.

I'd always assumed there would be someway to load this to RAM and not have to deal with a size limitation.
Is it an issue of how much space a Kickstart ROM can be mapped to or other problem?

[Hattig]

The AROS "ROM" gets you free of copyright issues, and is thus very important to users of FPGA Amigas and emulators.

It can also provide new features for classic Amigas if used, although there are also projects out there that rebuild the classic Kickstarts with bugfixed, up to date features too. However with the 1MB ROM limit (or 512KB for some) it's always going to be a squeeze on a classic Amiga.

If you have an A1200 or A4000, you've got a ROM already and don't need to worry. If you like you can use a patched Amiga Kickstart instead. AROS is just an interesting thing, not a necessity.

[Iggy]

The AROS "ROM" gets you free of copyright issues, and is thus very important to users of FPGA Amigas and emulators.

It can also provide new features for classic Amigas if used, although there are also projects out there that rebuild the classic Kickstarts with bugfixed, up to date features too. However with the 1MB ROM limit (or 512KB for some) it's always going to be a squeeze on a classic Amiga.

If you have an A1200 or A4000, you've got a ROM already and don't need to worry. If you like you can use a patched Amiga Kickstart instead. AROS is just an interesting thing, not a necessity.

Thanks. The first part I kind of already understood. And the rest helps somewhat.
Does that mean that in older Amigas there no way past a 512KB limit?
And if the later Amigas have 1MB ROM does that mean that an AROS kickstart will be easier to create for them or offer more features?

[freqmax]

The use of m68k AROS is being free of copyright restraints.

It would mean that Minimig/FPGA-Arcade can be offered as a works-out-of-the box solution. In contrast to the current situation where you need access to a classic Amiga to extract the ROM(s). And ofcourse the hassle to do the extraction.

[TheGoose]

It can also provide new features for classic Amigas if used, although there are also projects out there that rebuild the classic Kickstarts with bugfixed, up to date features too. However with the 1MB ROM limit (or 512KB for some) it's always going to be a squeeze on a classic Amiga.

Can you point me to one of these projects? I don't know diddly about EPROM burning/programing but I'm getting quite interested, even just to learn about it. And from above, I was focused on classics in thought, not FPGAs

AROS + FPGA, makes sense, extends functionality.
AROS + classic, case isn't as strong for the end user / consumer, IMO

@nicholas, good I see you get my point.

[vidarh]

I'd always assumed there would be someway to load this to RAM and not have to deal with a size limitation.
Is it an issue of how much space a Kickstart ROM can be mapped to or other problem?

If you put something in the ROM socket, there is no direct way around the space limitation if you want everything in ROM/flash, as the limit is because of the number of address lines available on the various models.

But of course you could put extra ROM/flash/RAM on the Zorro bus etc.

Or you can put some stuff in ROM/flash and a second stage boot loader that'll let you load a larger image from RAM, similar to what is done on the A1000.

So yes, there are ways around it, but the reason for trying to get as much as possible into a 512K or 1M image would be for compatibility with as wide range of classics as possible when booting floppies etc. where there's no convenient way to load another ROM image first (it'd be pretty sucky to put in a replacement ROM/flash on an A500 and have to boot a second stage image from floppy before you can boot a disk that depends on C:loadwb bringing up a Workbench, for example...).

For booting from a harddisk etc. this is pretty much a non-issue, since you pretty much only need enough in the kickstart to recognize the boot device and be able to load files from it.

[Iggy]

Can you point me to one of these projects? I don't know diddly about EPROM burning/programing but I'm getting quite interested, even just to learn about it. And from above, I was focused on classics in thought, not FPGAs

AROS + FPGA, makes sense, extends functionality.
AROS + classic, case isn't as strong for the end user / consumer, IMO

@nicholas, good I see you get my point.

I can point you to people who do EPROM burning for a very minimal cost (so low that even if I could do it, I'd pay for it).

And the above was kind of the focus of what I've been asking:

"And from above, I was focused on classics in thought, not FPGAs

AROS + FPGA, makes sense, extends functionality.
AROS + classic, case isn't as strong for the end user / consumer, IMO"

Nicholas has mentioned bringing new features to the bootstrap process (like RTG) in custom ROMs/Eproms and I get that.
It would allow features to be enabled before a floppy or whdload, w/o having to but AROS68K loaded from a drive.
But as a full AROS68K should be loadable from a drive, are there any other specific advantages?

[vidarh]

Something like what DENEB offers. If I have the power / control to pick and choose binaries (boingbags, whatever) to execute at boot up, why do I need AROS?

You don't "need" AROS on a classic unless you want the improvements that AROS can bring.

The benefit of AROS is in the long term where we can update any OS component without having to resort to piles of SetFunction()'s for example.

[HenryCase]

Thanks. The first part I kind of already understood. And the rest helps somewhat.
Does that mean that in older Amigas there no way past a 512KB limit?
And if the later Amigas have 1MB ROM does that mean that an AROS kickstart will be easier to create for them or offer more features?

Are the ROMs shipped with classic Amigas flashable? As far as I know they are not. In other words, if you need a new Kickstart you have to buy new hardware. If you want to use a larger kickstart you buy a Kickstart replacement chip/board that can handle it.

The main issue with the size of the AROS ROM is with the size of Wanderer. There has been talk of creating a Wanderer Lite to get around this issue. Other than that, there are no major components (AFAIK) that will need reworking to make an AROS ROM of a similar size to a classic AmigaOS ROM. For some software, you don't even need a Workbench replacement like Wanderer anyway (such as most games), so for this software the issue of size is not applicable.

[Terminills]

Are the ROMs shipped with classic Amigas flashable? As far as I know they are not. In other words, if you need a new Kickstart you have to buy new hardware. If you want to use a larger kickstart you buy a Kickstart replacement chip/board that can handle it.

The main issue with the size of the AROS ROM is with the size of Wanderer. There has been talk of creating a Wanderer Lite to get around this issue. Other than that, there are no major components (AFAIK) that will need reworking to make an AROS ROM of a similar size to a classic AmigaOS ROM. For some software, you don't even need a Workbench replacement like Wanderer anyway (such as most games), so for this software the issue of size is not applicable.

Jason already started on "wanderer lite" he called it workbook iirc. =]

[HenryCase]

Jason already started on "wanderer lite" he called it workbook iirc. =]

Ah cool! I noticed lou_dias used that name in this thread, but I didn't realise Jason was working on it, good times. :-) Just found a screenshot of Workbook (clearly WIP):
http://download.aros3d.org/pictures/workbook.jpg