Aros68k viability on real Amiga hardware

[Locutus]

Yup, resolution changes haven't been stable for me either. Usually they result in a lockup or massive graphics corruption.

[grelbfarlk]

Originally Posted by wawa

you are, kind of, doing things too complicated, seems to me.

to run aros under uae or on an amiga you basically only need to follow the instructions i posted above. you dont need to install aros or anything.
if you want to use your zorro rtg card you need to append the corresponding driver files to arosbootstrap command. so in case of p4:

boot/amiga/AROSBootstrap ROM boot/amiga/aros.hunk.gz boot/amiga/CirrusGD5446.chip boot/amiga/PicassoIV.card

i know that pci bridge drivers are incomplete on aros and i didnt test anything like that for a long time. i dont think i have ever got elbox pci library to work with aros, but whoever wants to try that, welcome.

im really positively surprised that warpup and poseidon work with aros. didnt expect that, at least at this stage. means aros is much more complete and compatible, than ive even thought.

I figured out the problem you can only use Arosbootstrap to load the P96 drivers if you don't have WinUAE emulating the physical ROMS. I put a 3.1 ROM in WinUAE and then added the aros.hunk.gz to the command and the screenmodes showed up but now it just reboot loops after I selected one of those screenmodes and rebooted. But it looks like it's using the RTG on early-startup menu and if I boot with no S-S then loadwb.

The WarpOS stuff is really flaky, like Cyberpi for instance never completes if you give it more than a few hundred digits, but neat that it works at all.

[wawa]

Originally Posted by Locutus

Yup, resolution changes haven't been stable for me either. Usually they result in a lockup or massive graphics corruption.

im back to trying to figure out how to debug m68k with gdb, in particular remotely on an amiga hooked up via serial. debug build have been lately restructured due to problem with rom content and such, but i cant get them to boot through. i think a reliable debug method for 68k needs to be found. plastering the code with debug statements and breakpoints is soo unreliable and time consuming..

[wawa]

Originally Posted by grelbfarlk

I figured out the problem you can only use Arosbootstrap to load the P96 drivers if you don't have WinUAE emulating the physical ROMS.

yes, you need to softkick from an amiga ks, exactly like on a real amiga currently.

I put a 3.1 ROM in WinUAE and then added the aros.hunk.gz to the command and the screenmodes showed up but now it just reboot loops after I selected one of those screenmodes and rebooted. But it looks like it's using the RTG on early-startup menu and if I boot with no S-S then loadwb.

im not sure what you are doing wrong, maybe you have chosen some too high resolution, but with use it shouldnt happen, except you are using limited ram on your rtg expansion. are using uae card or emulating a real one? how much vram?

at least you can simply delete screenmode.prefs from prefs/env/sys if you set something wrong.

The WarpOS stuff is really flaky, like Cyberpi for instance never completes if you give it more than a few hundred digits, but neat that it works at all.

you could put up a genuine os on the same emulated setup side by side and see how it behaves there. maybe its flaky anyway. maybe you give it too much to compute.

but honestly, none put any effort to ensure that it works, so its really surprising that it does.

[grelbfarlk]

Originally Posted by wawa

yes, you need to softkick from an amiga ks, exactly like on a real amiga currently.



im not sure what you are doing wrong, maybe you have chossen some too high resolution, but with use it shouldnt happen, except you are using limited ram on your rtg expansion. are using uae card or emulating a real one? how much vram?

at least you can simply delete screenmode.prefs from prefs/env/sys if you set something wrong.



you could put up a genuine os on the same emulated setup side by side and see how it behaves there. maybe its flaky anyway. maybe you give it too much to compute.

but honestly, none put any effort to ensure that it works, so its really surprising that it does.

It looks like my AROS drive is corrupted now, maybe that's the reason. I just selected 24-bit 1024x768 with 4MB VRAM, yes still in UAE, emulating Picasso-IV.
Deleted Screenmode.prefs and rebooted, working now, I think what happened is that it was trying to open 640x24016384x16384 (default not checked) on a 1024x768 screen or something like that. It's working with 800x600x24bpp. And it's letting me change screenmodes without crashing now.

Isn't that kind of the point of binary compatibility with 68k, you call a library with OS functions and it talks to the (emulated) hardware just like real Amiga OS would. I mean it's a vast simplification of the real behavior but the fact that it works at all is really neat.

[wawa]

Originally Posted by grelbfarlk

I just selected 24-bit 1024x768 with 4MB VRAM, yes still in UAE, emulating Picasso-IV.

yeah. thats too much i believe. wouldnt work with the genuine os as well. 1024x768 will work with 16 bit but thats it. learn to live with restrictions of last century technology

Deleted Screenmode.prefs and rebooted, working now, I think what happened is that it was trying to open 640x24016384x16384 (default not checked) on a 1024x768 screen or something like that.

yes, possibly.

It's working with 800x600x24bpp. And it's letting me change screenmodes without crashing now.

it might crash when selecting different pixel format. like 24bit>16bit or something like that.

Isn't that kind of the point of binary compatibility with 68k, you call a library with OS functions and it talks to the (emulated) hardware just like real Amiga OS would. I mean it's a vast simplification of the real behavior but the fact that it works at all is really neat.

yes. it is actually the point. however some low level stuff may still cause problems, especially if none ever tested it.

[grelbfarlk]

Originally Posted by wawa

yeah. thats too much i believe. wouldnt work with the genuine os as well. 1024x768 will work with 16 bit but thats it. learn to live with restrictions of last century technology


yes, possibly.


it might crash when selecting different pixel format. like 24bit>16bit or something like that.



yes. it is actually the point. however some low level stuff may still cause problems, especially if none ever tested it.

1024x768x24bpp is certainly not too much for 4MB of VRAM. 1280x1024x24bpp is right at the edge of what you can do with 4MB of VRAM.

What's the deal with 060.libraries, I mean should a person install their vendor specific 060.lib? Or is that just a really bad idea?

[wawa]

Originally Posted by wawa

it might crash when selecting different pixel format. like 24bit>16bit or something like that.

no. apparently i was wrong. couldnt get to crash againg under p4 emu. probably i have forgotten these default setting as well.

[wawa]

Originally Posted by grelbfarlk

What's the deal with 060.libraries, I mean should a person install their vendor specific 060.lib? Or is that just a really bad idea?

no. aros has 680x0.library. thats all in one equivalent for any cpu library on amiga. no problems with wrong libs anymore. setpatch activates available patches like fast copymem asm procedures by matthey.

this all in one approach may have some penalty in comparison to those traditional libs, at least according to thor. but im not sure if he is right.

[grelbfarlk]

Originally Posted by wawa

no. aros has 680x0.library. thats all in one equivalent for any cpu library on amiga. no problems with wrong libs anymore. setpatch activates available patches like fast copymem asm procedures by matthey.

this all in one approach may have some penalty in comparison to those traditional libs, at least according to thor. but im not sure if he is right.

So what about libraries for other hardware devices, is it just the RTG that you bootstrap because of the way AROS handles RTG? Like for some random ethernet card or sound card for instance?

[wawa]

Originally Posted by grelbfarlk

So what about libraries for other hardware devices, is it just the RTG that you bootstrap because of the way AROS handles RTG? Like for some random ethernet card or sound card for instance?

rtg is the only one you need to bootstrap. all others (specifically zorro devices) should be working fine. you simply choose the device driver in your ahi or network prefs. in particular x-surf and rapidroad are tested working, idont remember the sound cards.

[Locutus]

Originally Posted by grelbfarlk

What's the deal with 060.libraries, I mean should a person install their vendor specific 060.lib? Or is that just a really bad idea?

As wawa said, 680x0.library + AROS setpatch will cover this.

The default S:Startup-sequence doesn't have setpatch in it so add it.

[Dunny]

So how far are we from getting AROS running on an unexpanded A1200 and a Workbench floppy?

[grond]

Originally Posted by Dunny

So how far are we from getting AROS running on an unexpanded A1200 and a Workbench floppy?

As far as from running Windows 10 on a 386SX. Unreasonable expectations will remain unreasonable expectations.

[Retro1234]

Stuff that uses the OS - Last time I tried was slower but stuff like games that killed the OS had no problems with the AROS Rom.

[wawa]

Originally Posted by Dunny

So how far are we from getting AROS running on an unexpanded A1200 and a Workbench floppy?

might actually be possible. amiga-m68k-boot here:
http://aros.sourceforge.net/de/nightly1.php
contains an adf image of a boot disk. looks a bit huge to me, so might be it needs a hd drive. with enough patience somebody could give it a try. i dont like to mess with floppies, but who knows.

[Dunny]

I totally understand why it can't easily be run on a vanilla miggy, the aim was to reproduce the OS, not rewrite it. But with all the current goings-on of those who claim to own the Amiga, it would be nice to have an alternative.

That is likely going to be AROS, as that's where the bulk of the work has been done. So how about halfway? Running WB3.1 under the AROS ROM on a vanilla 1200? How's that going? I suppose I could test that myself tbh.

Anyway, last time I tried AROS it wasn't compatible with any of my PCs so I'm still waiting for that to improve at any rate.

[wawa]

Originally Posted by Dunny

Anyway, last time I tried AROS it wasn't compatible with any of my PCs so I'm still waiting for that to improve at any rate.

i cant comment on that since my interest is with amiga-m68k, but for one there are dedicated systems and distros and also they are putting to gether a database of supported systems i must have linked to earlier in this thread.

x86 or x64 as a platform doesnt necessarily mean just any variation of hardware is supported, especially with the very limited human resources. amiga though is much narrower target. so given some involvement it may become well supported. apollo coders are already onboard as it looks like.

[Overflow]

Just to compliment Dunny and Wawas posts;

http://www.apollo-core.com/knowledge.php?b=1&note=5580

[Dunny]

Originally Posted by Overflow

Just to compliment Dunny and Wawas posts;

http://www.apollo-core.com/knowledge.php?b=1&note=5580

Indeed, I've seen that - and it's nice that they are progressing. But needing a Vampire to run it? That's a stretch, but at least it's a start.