Kickstart 2.0 vs. kickstart 3.1 on A600

[fc.studio]

I'm a proud owner of no. 3 Amiga. My first glorious A500 with Kickstart 1.3/2.04 (now in the attic) and no. 2 A1200, both enough expanded and with OS 3.5/3.9.

Now I would like to have the compact A600.
I would run it only for occasional WHDLoad games. The OS will be its original, upgraded with MagicWorkbench graphics and little more (perhaps Newicons activated). Therefore I know it must have the 1MB RAM expansion and the Hard Drive (compact flash card).

Since probably I'll have to upgrade the Kickstart ROM to mount larger hard drive, would you suggest me to go for the 37.350 (with Workbench 2.1 installed) or the 40.063 (with Workbench 3.1 installed)? What are the real advantages of the last vs. the first on the A600?

Tha A600 has no AGA and I'll never expand it again to mount OS3.5/3.9... So what more I get with kickstart 3.1? Perhaps would I have a more responsive/faster workbench, a more stable system, better compatibility... What? Do you know which OS will leave more chip memory free? Would allow me to save memory to mount kickstart 3.1 and run Workbench 2.1?

Any help or real experience would be appreciated. Thanks.

[laser]

Originally Posted by fc.studio

I'm a proud owner of no. 3 Amiga. My first glorious A500 with Kickstart 1.3/2.04 (now in the attic) and no. 2 A1200, both enough expanded and with OS 3.5/3.9.

Now I would like to have the compact A600.
I would run it only for occasional WHDLoad games. The OS will be its original, upgraded with MagicWorkbench graphics and little more (perhaps Newicons activated). Therefore I know it must have the 1MB RAM expansion and the Hard Drive (compact flash card).

Since probably I'll have to upgrade the Kickstart ROM to mount larger hard drive, would you suggest me to go for the 37.350 (with Workbench 2.1 installed) or the 40.063 (with Workbench 3.1 installed)? What are the real advantages of the last vs. the first on the A600?

Tha A600 has no AGA and I'll never expand it again to mount OS3.5/3.9... So what more I get with kickstart 3.1? Perhaps would I have a more responsive/faster workbench, a more stable system, better compatibility... What? Do you know which OS will leave more chip memory free? Would allow me to save memory to mount kickstart 3.1 and run Workbench 2.1?

Any help or real experience would be appreciated. Thanks.

if you upgrade to 3.1 roms will be ok...but no necesary if you wanna install large hardrives
you can install idefix97 with kick 2.0 and you will have a new scsi.device compatible with all large drives
about memory ....on both kickstarts you will get the same memory free at boot....but workbench 3.1 eats more memory...so for a minimum memory setup use kick2.0+workbench 2.0

[fc.studio]

It's true, I did not think to it, but Idefix'97 could be a solution to large hard drives. Previously I used it for CD drive connection only, but this system surely will not have such add-on. I prefere use those KBytes of memory, required by Idefix, to run the Compact Flash driver for the PCMCIA port.
I believe, as you suggest, Kickstart 37.350 running Workbench 2 (2.1 is better but I don't know where) could be the best solution. Thanks.

But what about Kickstart 3.1 and Workbench 3.1 speed, stability and compatibility on the A600? Any opinions?

[Charlie]

Possibly more interesting than genuinely helpful:

An A1200 I recently bought had real 3.1 roms, but Wb 2.1 on the HDD...

Booted d*amn fast with tiny memory footprint + benefits of updates in the 3.1 rom. Quite cleaver I thought.
The ultimate WHDLoad setup..?

As it happens I replaced 2.1 with 3.9 & have been faffing about ever since.

[amigarobbo]

WHDload needs a better processor than the A600 68000, and many games need a MMU. I'd recommend a 1200 (preferably with a fastish 68030) for WHDload to be honest, I've got an A600 for the same reason as yourself, and find myself using my 1200 almost exclusively to be honest.

[fc.studio]

Interesting. My A1200 with Blizzard 1230/IV takes less than 10 sec. to load extended OS3.9. I believe this is fast enough.

But obviously speed is not important for me for the A600 above.
I would like to know if someone found real advantateges on upgrading this ECS machine to the kickstart 3.1.

[amigarobbo]

Originally Posted by fc.studio

But what about Kickstart 3.1 and Workbench 3.1 speed, stability and compatibility on the A600? Any opinions?

Err.. the bar at the time is white, not black?

3.1 is better than 2.04 or whatever, but not greatly so. couldn't tell you if there was an increase in speed, possibly not as I do find the A600 a bit slow in opening/moving windows etc, which to be honest I put down to the 68000 CPU, but it could be something else, possibly being use to more powerful Amigas.

[fc.studio]

Originally Posted by amigarobbo

WHDload needs a better processor than the A600 68000, and many games need a MMU. I'd recommend a 1200 (preferably with a fastish 68030) for WHDload to be honest, I've got an A600 for the same reason as yourself, and find myself using my 1200 almost exclusively to be honest.

I could be wrong, but WHDLoad doesn't require minimum 68020+ and (for many) MMU. Surely the main problem is the lack of memory. However 2MB should be enough to run many, many games but obviously without the preload option.
I know what means to have an accelerated A1200 vs. a 68000 machine, but I believe it's nice to have a compact Amiga able to run WHDLoad games.

[amigarobbo]

I have tried using the 600 on WHDload games that I know work on the 1200 with limited success, but I didn't have much time to play around with the settings, But I will try it again, just as soon as I can find some time...

http://pocketinsanity.sourceforge.ne...nt/view/31/44/

not quite the same thing!

[Graham Humphrey]

I'm 99.9% sure that WHDLoad does work on a 68000.

[Zetr0]

@GH

WHDLoad does indeed work on a 68000 chip, please see http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=27727 for what you really can do with an A600 and generic 68k moto,

I will say that I have updated this project quite a lot, and i should make an update including an internal stereo mixer and some other upgrades including a 4MB SRAM pcmcia card.

I am hoping to get some time soon to develop the "LUCAS" a500 020 accellerator project to work with the A600, but for me this is only practical if I can develop a Clip On ram-upgrade

OS3.x is the way to go, if you want to use the IDE for drives bigger than 40MB, I would recommend 3.1 in conjunction with OS 3.1 or Classic Workbench.

I did have the A600 with a standard 68k moto running OS3.5, however this is both a HUGE footprint, as well as a lot of the libraries are compiled for an 020, so i stepped back to 3.1

@amigarobbo

I don't think I know of any game that uses an MMU, in fact i can only lay my hand to one application that does and thats when you run Debian linux.

The truth is some WHDLOAD games won't run due to memory requirements and VBR signal (the one that allows a quit key ) but i have some good success rates with the 4MB Sram card fitted. obviously AGA games just bomb and large memory hungry games just fizzle, but a fair few do and will work

[Fingerlickin_B]

fc,

All my Amigas have 3.1 ROMs, if not just so if I want to run newer OS I can.

As for stability using 3.1 in a 600...no problems here and WB seems to operate somewhat more smoothly, regardless of the version.

Stated by someone else above is that you can still use the earlier WB with 3.1 ROM installed, so why not just install the 3.1 ROM and fiddle with different WB until you know what suits you best?

PZ.

*EDIT* - I forgot, my 600 tower has switchable 2.04/3.1 ROMs, but I never even use the switch anymore, just use a software-run degrader if I really need it...

[Zetr0]

@Fingerz

wow long time no read you, how ya doing?!

[Fingerlickin_B]

Originally Posted by Zetr0

@Fingerz

wow long time no read you, how ya doing?!

Hey man, yeah not bad and yourself?

Kinda' fell away from the miggys with so many other projects on hand, but couldn't keep away forever!

PZ.

[Zetr0]

@Fingerz

ahhh them miggies... always pull you back in the end.... one way or another...

glad to read ya keeping busy and doing okies... hows your a600 tower project?

[Fingerlickin_B]

Originally Posted by Zetr0

@Fingerz

ahhh them miggies... always pull you back in the end.... one way or another...

glad to read ya keeping busy and doing okies... hows your a600 tower project?

Yeah man, the A600 was done a while ago...at least to the extent I wanted it to be.

Got my A1200T to deal with now, but I actually use it in an unfinished state more than thinking about completion

Happy to discuss via PM, so fc's thread can stay on track

PZ.

[amigarobbo]

Originally Posted by Zetr0

@GH


@amigarobbo

I don't think I know of any game that uses an MMU, in fact i can only lay my hand to one application that does and thats when you run Debian linux.

The truth is some WHDLOAD games won't run due to memory requirements and VBR signal (the one that allows a quit key ) but i have some good success rates with the 4MB Sram card fitted. obviously AGA games just bomb and large memory hungry games just fizzle, but a fair few do and will work

I thought it needed MMU to relocate the kickrom and create the virtual disk images, but since you've got em working, I must be wrong, Oopsie!

[Zetr0]

@amigarobbo

nope MMU is used for 'paging' memory to and fro from the hard disk and since Workbench doesn't page memory (from previous discussion/thread VMU for the Amiga is a trick and does not actually use the MMU) so for 99.5% of Amiga an MMU is pretty worthless....

Debian Linux on the other hand is in fact, like 99% of flavor's of linux, is a paging Operating system and hence the MMU is actually used.

However it would only be fair to say that I am sure there was a programm on the Amiga that actually did make use of the MMU ( i cannot remember what it was now) as well as the jury still being out on If the SCSI controller makes use of the MMU in some way.... hmmmies....

[amigarobbo]

You know I always thought MMU was a worthwhile, while the FPU was a waste of time, always something new to learn isn't there!?

[Zetr0]

@amigarobbo

I suppose it all comes down to what you use it for really... only a hand full of games actually make use of the FPU, from which a good 32bit integer engine would do a fair approximation (under 50mhz 060 at least), arguably the slower the cpu the more it requires an fpu to keep.

but on a miggy, this will only REALLY present its self in ray tracing / fractal imagery and 2/3 dimensional geometry an FPU can go a long way.

since I like a power apps (that use an fpu) i like fpus there like friendly chip companions