History of KickWork for Amiga 1000

[Pentad]

I stumbled across a fascinating post on Amigalove.com about KickWork. Now, my first Amiga was the Amiga 500 (and did not buy a 1000 until the 90s for my collection) so I never thought much about the Kickstart/Workbench situation on the Amiga 1000. I was aware of some Kickstart/Workbench hybrid disks for the 1000 but not having one at the time I didn't really care. When I finally bought a 1000 it was just for show so I still didn't care.  :-)

However, I thought it was a PD program that created the hybrid disk but I guess KickWork was commercial (and still being sold today!) and KickBench was a PD solution.

Personally, I hated Kickstart in ROM and later on wrote my own Kickstart relocator/loader. Still, I can see why having it all on one disk would be desirable in certain situations.

You can read the trek to find the author of KickWork (Rudolph Loew) here and what Loew has to say about writing KickWork:

https://amigalove.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=312


Rudolph Loew's Site here (where you can still buy KickWork!):

http://rloew.x10host.com


Enjoy!
-P

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Wow, that is an awesome retro design website. I bet it hasn't changed much since around 1994.

[kolla]

Very cool!

[dovegrace]

I like it, too.  Simple, uncluttered, and to the point.

[klx300r]

@Pentad

thanks for posting as I remember reading about KickWork back in the day but since I had an HD with Kick1.3 I didn't have the issue of constantly swapping disks but cool program especially as original developer as still selling it today

[Pentad]

I reached out to Rudolph Loew and asked him if he could expand on the history of KickWork, if Commodore ever talked with him about it, and just some background information. Here is his reply:


Dear Sir,

I heard about KickBench and thought it was an interesting idea. Unfortunately it has a significant flaw. It needs to rewrite the Disk ID twice each time it is used.
This means that if you are not careful, the disk will stop working. It is also not safe for unattended operation as an inopportune power failure will disable it.
By digging deeper into the kernel I was able to eliminate this issue. KickWork can be Write Protected, once configured, so it is not affected by Power failures.

I made a 1.2 Version initially, but the 1.3 Version was the biggest seller.

Amigo Business Computers packaged and marketed the KickWork Disks. They had a fair number of sales.
They also marketed my Networking Software. I designed a proprietary Network that could run on Ethernet, Parallel Ports, Serial Ports, Modems, and even Joystick Ports.

I don't think Commodore ever said anything about KickWork.

I created a specifically crafted File to reserve the space for the modified KickStart at the required location. I assume KickBench did something similar.

I have a KickWork 2.0. I don't remember if the KickWork 3.0 worked properly or not. They use 256KB of the main RAM in a 512MB Machine as well as the normal 256KB reserved RAM.

I got my Amiga 1000 from Amigo Business Computers. I upgraded over time to the Amiga 3000. I still have one running continuously, answering my Phone, and running a few Programs.

Now I focus mainly on Windows 98SE which I have greatly extended.

Sincerely,


Rudolph R. Loew
rloew@hotmail.com


Pretty interesting information...

-P