Cloanto are changing the Kickstart ROMs yearly?

[Lord Aga]

Originally Posted by Saghalie

Hyperion Entertainment no longer has a business license.

Hooray! Hopefully they will vanish and there will be no more ridiculous lawsuits aimed at stopping any kind of progress in the Amiga world.

[Saghalie]

Originally Posted by Lord Aga

Hooray! Hopefully they will vanish and there will be no more ridiculous lawsuits aimed at stopping any kind of progress in the Amiga world.

That will not stop. They own the Copyrights and even if they don't have a business license, they can still take people to court.

[Minuous]

I also have the two DVDs that came with the top-end Amiga Forever 2012 release, and such fascinating documentaries, from the launch of the Amiga to the failure of Commodore.

IIRC the version of the Deathbed Vigil they supply is a poor-quality VHS rip, not the remastered version you can get directly from Dave Haynie.

[honx]

Originally Posted by Minuous

IIRC the version of the Deathbed Vigil they supply is a poor-quality VHS rip, not the remastered version you can get directly from Dave Haynie.

is it this one? https://www.amazon.com/Deathbed-Vigi.../dp/B00B1X898K

if so, i'll have to wait for a sale because price is a bit high...

[Minuous]

I've got the PAL DVD-R version of the 8th Anniversary Special Edition. It's the red one on his official site at http://www.frogpondmedia.com/dbv/index.html , NTSC ones are green. I don't remember what I paid for it, probably more than $20 though.

I ordered it directly from him about 15 years ago but it seems he is not selling individual copies directly anymore: "All retail sales are now handled by online retailers".

I don't know anything about the 21st Century Special Edition, I guess Dave's the best man to ask about that. His email address is on the site.

[hawkeye]

I bought several versions of Cloanto as I started with emulations after owning an A2000 back in the days. Since 2 weeks I again own an A2000 but I was amazed by the fact the KS1.3 gives me a yellow screen (according some people a floppy disk issue) when using the legal bought KS on a Gotek. The KS2.04 ADF is working fine. I downloaded from the web an ADF with KS1.3 and that was working. My goal is always to support good software and I like Cloanto, but.... (there is always a but)... why the legal version doesn't work and the 'illegal' does work... I thought I was safe... I knew it was the ADF because my original floppies were working. What to do?

[ptyerman]

Just use the downloaded versions. The Cloanto ROM's have been foobarred in one way or another on real machines for a few year now.
They're fine for emulation but not for real machine use, numerous problems arise when doing so.

[Minuous]

>My goal is always to support good software

Their software is clearly not good.

>I like Cloanto

Why!?

Tell them their product is defective and you want a refund. They have known it is broken for years and seem not to care; they are knowingly selling defective merchandise.

[mcb]

Originally Posted by Minuous

IIRC the version of the Deathbed Vigil they supply is a poor-quality VHS rip, not the remastered version you can get directly from Dave Haynie.

Indeed, it isn't the remastered version. It is the original we were kindly allowed to use. I too purchased both editions. The audio on the remastered version is quite different, but it is also a matter of taste which one you prefer, as one sounds a bit more "natural" to me. As for the video, it was an analog tape to begin with, and lacking some futuristic enhancement/super-resolution technology (still hopeful...) we are stuck with some limitations of the original recording.

Originally Posted by hawkeye

I was amazed by the fact the KS1.3 gives me a yellow screen (according some people a floppy disk issue) when using the legal bought KS on a Gotek. The KS2.04 ADF is working fine. I downloaded from the web an ADF with KS1.3 and that was working. My goal is always to support good software and I like Cloanto, but.... (there is always a but)... why the legal version doesn't work and the 'illegal' does work... I thought I was safe... I knew it was the ADF because my original floppies were working. What to do?

Did you try and contact support?

This whole thread sounds like it started off on the wrong foot. Cloanto is not changing ROMs yearly, and if there is a known issue, we work to fix it.

Can you have a look at cloanto.com/amiga/roms, and check which ROM works, and which one doesn't?

Originally Posted by ptyerman

Just use the downloaded versions. The Cloanto ROM's have been foobarred in one way or another on real machines for a few year now. They're fine for emulation but not for real machine use, numerous problems arise when doing so.

Foobarred? In what way?

"for a few year[s]" sounds like you know something specific which I don't.

Two ROMs in Amiga Forever had "illegal" opcodes in the 1990s. But that was some time ago, wasn't it? More about that here:

Amiga Model-Specific ROM Differences

If you feel like something is missing here, including bugs, feel free to PM me:

Classic Amiga "Kickstart" ROM Versions

Originally Posted by Minuous

They have known it is broken for years and seem not to care; they are knowingly selling defective merchandise.

Looks like a thread full of conspiracy theories

Would you care to detail what in your opinion is broken and/or has not been fixed?

Thanks!

Mike

[Minuous]

@mcb:

See Hawkeye's post above. See also:
http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=89386
http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=81472
http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?p=801298
etc.

Apart from bugs in Kickstart there are also issues with Workbench, eg. distributing obsolete versions, containing known bugs and missing functionality, of various system components.

>Looks like a thread full of conspiracy theories

I don't think anyone is claiming a conspiracy, just pointing out the demonstrable fact that the package doesn't work correctly.

[mcb]

It looks like the posts refer to two bugs, which have been solved:

- Two Amiga Forever emulation ADFs briefly had a buggy GetHostVar command in the Startup-Sequence, which would crash if used outside of the emulation or with the I/O board disabled. The bug was introduced after a change in the guest/host I/O functionality (via new Zorro board), and was solved shortly afterwards. either commenting out GetHostVar, as noted in the thread, or using the new version, will fix this.

- 3.X ROM 45.064 fixed a possible issue with floppy disks.

The underlying thing I find misleading is that there is this section named "support.Amiga Forever", where maybe some people expect support, instead the result is often incorrect information, if not bashing, even by administrators (see some comments in the threads you linked to). This is not an official Amiga Forever support site. We are working on something in this respect, where we can better and more transparently (benefit of a public forum, I admit) support different products, not just Amiga Forever.

I agree with you about existing bugs in the original Amiga OS, and we have been working for years to make it possible to make changes, but this topic now risks opening a can of worms, given the current "situation"

[Minuous]

Good to know those bugs have been fixed, but really the broken versions never should have been inflicted on users without testing in the first place.

The underlying thing I find misleading is that there is this section named "support.Amiga Forever", where maybe some people expect support, instead the result is often incorrect information, if not bashing, even by administrators (see some comments in the threads you linked to). This is not an official Amiga Forever support site.

I have heard several users say they use this forum to get help because they can't get help from Cloanto.

[mcb]

Originally Posted by Minuous

Good to know those bugs have been fixed, but really the broken versions never should have been inflicted on users without testing in the first place.

Well, if that helps, they have been inflicted with testing

The floppy drive issue was timing-related. It did not happen in all configurations. I seem to remember that floppy-related timing specifics was an elusive factor also in the Commodore days, with few engineers familiar with this aspect.

The GetHostVar bug did not manifest itself in a "normal" (default) emulation environment. The Classic Support ADFs were also not affected (they do not have emulation additions). But indeed, if you took a 1.3 or 3.1 ADF from the emulation, and used it on a real Amiga, or with an emulated one without the (virtual) I/O board, it would crash.

I am not trying to minimize these issues. I agree that it would have been desirable to catch them during beta testing. I also wish to have seen this thread before, rather than after somebody sent me a link to it. But, I think that we still do have a good internal feedback/escalation loop in place, whereby we try to address bugs fast, and release updates just as fast. It lacks transparency (a detailed revision history), but that too should be there in one of the next updates.

Fronts that badly need more work include the KX Light portion (the Linux-based boot code), and that's why it's still called "experimental". I am somewhat relieved that I did not have to address this here

I hope that we can keep working hard and improve during 2018 and beyond, also with feedback like yours.

[ptyerman]

KX Light has an error after installation to hard drive, but it is an easy fix. I emailed Cloanto via their web page about it early this year.
It's just the .uaerc config file calling the wrong Kickstart ROM that causes it to fail, it calls a ROM that doesn't exist. Edit the line in the .uaerc that calls the ROM to a valid ROM name and it boots up and runs just fine.
I use it on a couple of old machines, it breathes new life into them instead of going to land fill!

[towo2099]

That KX Light part on AF is really dumb at all. No one with recent hardware can use it, since no one would use such an old 2.4.x kernel with no support for modern hardware in it.
For example, Thinkpad T420 (i5 2nd generation), no sound, no net).

[desiv]

Originally Posted by Minuous

Good to know those bugs have been fixed, but really the broken versions never should have been inflicted on users without testing in the first place.

Yes, I only buy software that has zero issues myself.
I mean, can anyone imagine if software released actually had issues that needed to be fixed after release?

That would be.

..

er..

um..



desiv

[ptyerman]

Originally Posted by towo2099

That KX Light part on AF is really dumb at all. No one with recent hardware can use it, since no one would use such an old 2.4.x kernel with no support for modern hardware in it.
For example, Thinkpad T420 (i5 2nd generation), no sound, no net).

Nobody's forcing you to use it so don't if it doesn't suit! If you want a modern version use Amilator. KX Light is fine for older machines.

[tero]

While KX-Light runs fine on my comp I would prefer a makeover. Just because of the loading time, a newer base could load in a few seconds.

[ptyerman]

Would be nice with a up-to date Debian, Ubuntu or Suse base.

[Anubis]

LOL,

last time I got cloanto roms was in one of be mine bundle @ groupees.com.

I really was surprised to see it in bundle...