Aros m68k (Kickstart substitute)

[andreas]

AMAZING!

Never bothered before to read this thread through.

I hope there'll be no hate mail from Cloanto...
(because you can get every monopolist really upset if you develop something adequate or even something better free of charge, har har, can't hide my schadenfreude)

[gilgamesh]

Cloanto stated somewhere on his site that he endorsed a free KS substitute. But maybe he thought it would never see the light of day anyway.

[andreas]

Ah, wouldn't have considered that ... ever. So thanks for telling me. Besides, my remark was a bit tongue-in-cheek anyway

BTW...

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

Note that there is no on-disk WB

Let me guess, Toni: licensing issue?
Considering that the original C= WB (in case you were speaking of that) is still under copyright.

[gilgamesh]

So, er, ... Well, nevermind.

They made a substitute for WB in the meantime as well. It's packaged with the latest beta, but I can't get it running. Would be cool if you gave it a try.

[andreas]

As you're so kindly asking me to, I will. NOW.

[vidarh]

Originally Posted by andreas

Let me guess, Toni: licensing issue?
Considering that the original C= WB (in case you were speaking of that) is still under copyright.

That's not the issue, AROS has Wanderer, which is the Workbench replacement. The problem is Wanderer is *big* and depends on Zune (MUI), and AmigaOS has most of Workbench in Kickstart (C:Loadwb and Libs:workbench.library both only contains support stuff).

On x86 it's not a problem, but putting Wanderer in the AROS m68k kickstart so C:Loadwb can work makes it too big and bulky when you add in all the stuff it depends on, so Jason McMullen wrote "Workbook" which is a much smaller Workbench replacement as a lightweight alternative, but that's at a much earlier stage than Wanderer.

Originally Posted by gilgamesh

Cloanto stated somewhere on his site that he endorsed a free KS substitute. But maybe he thought it would never see the light of day anyway.

They've put up money towards the bounty ($111 towards bounty II), so I do think they'd like it to see the light of day - after all it could eventually mean not having to pay license fees for the real AmigaOS.

[Toni Wilen]

Cloanto has only a rom license, they can't give it away for free or anything without getting in legal trouble. But thats enough of that topic..

To stay ontopic, here is quick changelog of random contents:

- 2.x-3.1 WB disks should boot without problems, now also includes correct palette and mouse cursor settings.
- fully compatible with WB2+ C:IPrefs now.
- 1.x works except C:Run (which only outputs errors) and AROS resident Run requires T: -> WB disk must be write-enabled.. Will be fixed later.
- devs:system-configuration is loaded and used (1.x boot disk correct colors etc..)
- reset proof programs supported (kicktags, coldcapture etc)
- ArosBootStrap comes with source tree, Aros softkick loader that works on any Amiga that has either 2M of chip or 1M or more local fast RAM. (*)

Known problems:

- do not use OS3.5+ setpatch, it is never going to work without specific setpatch detection.
- system patches like FBlit etc can't be compatible. Do not use.
- Scalos does not work, reason unknown.

- custom chipset driver is still slow
- audio.device still does nothing
- not all aros native math libraries support FPU or all software functions
- modeids are still "random". Fixing this requires aros graphics subsystem changes.

*) Possibly the only native Amiga C program that directly calls 1.x BCPL functions! We wanted to make it any KS compatible, unfortunately for example ReadArgs() is 2.0+ only, fortunately 1.x BCPL DOS has similar function

[ImmortalA1000]

So in laymens terms how far are we from legal 100% free Amiga emulation?

I only want sufficient files for UAE to play the OCS/AGA ADF disk games like 90% of people who use UAE "illegally"

[gilgamesh]

Well, you can play Turrican II without any glitches that I would attribute to Aros. (I've mentioned that once or twice already. )

When Toni thinks the ROM has become more or less stable, maybe we should set up a compatibility list in the Wiki?

[Toni Wilen]

Most games that only use boot block to load hardware loader should work fine unless they assume KS1.x like memory allocation and overwrite OS structures or do something stupid that only works on 1.x accidentally. (which is not rare, unfortunately)

100% compatibility is impossible. There is no way to make ROM that is both 1.3 and 3.0/3.1 compatible at the same time. Even 3.1 compatibility can't be 100% because it would require implementing all known and unknown bugs 100% exactly! (it is guaranteed there is at least one program that only works because of some OS bug..)

Examples of bugs we have seen:

- assuming that registers D2 to D4 can be modified in input handlers. (Only worked because AOS input.handler does not use those registers, of course they are not documented as being scratch registers)
- calling dos functions without dosbase in A6!

Both are worked around but not all can be fixed easily (or at all without breaking new aros-only features for example)

some update notes:
- real audio.device implemented but only minimal testing done (audio.device is rarely used for sound, usually only for channel allocation)
- first part of aros graphics modeid updates done, modeid and depth separated. Next part is to replace generated modeids with real AOS modeids.

btw, it is fully 68000 compatible (I have seen some strange notes somewhere else that says you need a 68020 or better)

[Toni Wilen]

Native custom chipset modeIDs are now correct. (special modes like EHB or HAM not available yet)

RTG driver does not override custom chipset driver anymore. RTG still has "mode promotion" enabled, boot menu and boot shell use RTG if available.

Custom chipset modes open "behind" RTG mode at the moment. AROS thinks RTG and chipset modes are using different separate monitors, mode switching needs to be implemented. (which means it is difficult to see any custom chipset screens if RTG is enabled..)

[kolorabi]

This sounds incredibly cool, thanks for your efforts and please keep up the good work.

[AmigaDave]

Thanks for the updates Toni, keep them coming and thanks for all the hard work and long hours.

[gulliver]

@Toni Wilen
Thank you for your work

I was just wondering if you are looking to achieve binary compatibility (I mean running Aros68k executables on a 3.x Amiga enviroment) at some point.

Thanks again.

[gilgamesh]

It is more or less binary compatible already. http://www.evillabs.net/wiki/index.p...F2HUNK_utility

[ImmortalA1000]

90% of people who want WinUAE just want a legal and free alternative to play A500 or A1200 games.

If this happens one day then great if not then eye patch and peg leg time again! Parrot is optional.

[Toni Wilen]

Random status report.

UAEGFX RTG/custom chipset screen switching is finally working properly. Even whdload works perfectly now.

[fgh]

Fantastic work Toni, and congrats on the bounty!

Might there be seperate versions for 1.3 and 3.1 compatibility at a later stage?

[NovaCoder]

This is great news, well done to all involved

This will also be great for the new FPGA projects.

[Toni Wilen]

Lots of changes since last time..

- AROS is now fully dos packets converted (all platforms)
- Motorola 68040/060 support library ROM built-in
- CDFS rom built-in (does not automount yet but probably in future)
- Boot menu is now more useful (shows boot devices and expansions)
- ArosBootStrap (softkick) mode AOS driver support. Allows use of any AOS ROM resident modules. For example A3000 ROM scsi.device can be used to enable real A3000 built-in SCSI in AROS. Also added support for Picasso96 driver files (.card and .chip files) to enable RTG support in AROS. Even boot menu and boot image uses RTG mode automatically.

and probably mode I already forgot..

Might there be seperate versions for 1.3 and 3.1 compatibility at a later stage?

Maybe.