@TCD

I detected a little glee in the prospect of them being damaged by this, as if this were some underground movement to bring down the evil Cloanto empire. I've seen them misrepresented so frequently on EAB in the past that it gets a little tiresome.

If I misunderstood jotd here of course, then I apologise.

actually guys I dont think that a FreeKick solution wouldn't damage Amiga-Forever at all

I suspect that they can be empowered (as much as the rest of the community) by it.

Amiga Forever is a very good legal product that contains a lot of great games and apps - even a workbench that, although can be improved - does provide a great basis for it.

At least we could give people a way to play the odd Amiga game 'out-of-the-box', without the all so subtle Google hints ;)

Hell yeah! Great idea. Maybe Natami or classics can gain new features down the line too. This is awesome. Bravo!

Don't get me wrong, I think this is a great idea! Looking forward to it.

I can't really tell, is it meant to be a replacement for Kick 3.1 specifically?

Yes, as Aros aims to implement the AOS3.1 interface. Then again, there could be a "compatibility mode" later.

Fantastic.
I hope Toni does it, I genuinely do.
That said he better get his arse in gear, he only has 6 months left to do it.

OK forget about Cloanto (I have nothing against them, it was just a joke), what are the technical facts about the roms please?
(or I'll start to believe to think you find it funnier to respond to ppl trolling ;))

This is complete and utter nonsense!

A technical minded person would be best to join the Aros Mailing List (linked in the first post) and follow the developments there. The are hundresd of posts describing kickstart ROM work.

some more info.... (not technical sorry, dont really follow most of whats happening.)
- They are moving to a 2x 512KB rom in the meantime and may reduce the size later when things are working properly
- Toni is working on a amiga chpset hidd for display, 640x256x2
- I think they have managed to run some 1.3 cli stuff
- They are tag teaming there development efforts (different timezones)

Honestly the progress is quite unreal considering 2 or 3 other people have attempted to complete the bounties previously and not succeded.

Initial version(s) will be:

- slow, possibly really slow.
- big, very big.

Current ROM images contain everything and much more..

- some 1.x weirdness will be supported (BCPL DOS interface for example) but not 1.x bugs or any side-effects that stupid programs expect. Maybe later in some special A500-only rom build.

Early optimization = very bad.

Random notes:

No AmigaDOS program runs yet. For example DOS and Intuition is not fully m68k compatible yet. Lots of slow and boring debugging to do.. DOS is probably the worst part.

Most low level resources and drivers have been implemented, at least partially (for example trackdisk.device is currently read-only), autoconfig is working.

Boot phase is working until DOS starts which means bootblock based disks work fine (as long as they don't overwrite system structures, memory usage is of course different)

@michael: I AM a technical-minded person (I have maintained the early OS emulation for WHDLoad/JST for ages). It's just that I'm interested in lots of other tech stuff and not focused on the ROMS ATM. Thanks for the short but interesting information you gave.

@Toni: I was expecting that. Doing miracles with C code is difficult. I guess that critical parts of original ROMs are written in assembly. You cannot afford that for a first version or you'll never see the end of it :)
You mean that structures are different. But you mean internal structures, not structures returned by functions right? Having disassembled a lot of programs (most of them being games) I can see that they all need the correct offsets, including offsets in exec & dos library structures.

Thanks both of you for your replies

Thanks Toni you really are amazing doing excellent things WinUAE development & this ROM project which I consider even in terms of challenge!! We'll build you a monument made with old A500 yellowed cases :)

@antonvataz: no need to apologize (but I appreciate the fact anyway), if people abused other people like you do there would be less wars :)

Well, it's arguably a rather theoretical point given that most Amiga software is written in a more legal way than that.

But it's a valid principle that any "compatible replacement" for any software is only going to be compatible if the callers are always using it according to the documented API rather than poking directly.

I mean, don't we already all have Kickstart 3.1? So I don't see the need to replace it with something that is exactly the same but of equal or less compatibility. Then again, if the plan is to enhance it with OS3.5/3.9/AROS components it could be worthwhile.

I thought the line "Free and legal Kickstart ROM on the way" was a good reason why we could do with it.

@decidal

y'know... I think it was the word FREE that got to me too ;)

And we are not just talking about a good-google search here.


@minious
There are times I wonder if you are stuck in a forest and you cannot see the woods for the trees.

this "compatible" will open up so many projects and eventually free the shackles of the community of laudable legality - can you not see this aspect atleast?

Once a new Kickrom is developed that is as compatible with 3.1 as possible - then looks at a workbench replacements - improved software porting in and out of the AROS community!


@thread
this is so awesome - it can eventually used for almost any project - I would say that this time next year my miggys could be running on it..

This is such a positive step forward for the community that I may just have to do some breakdancing in the hall way.

Where you practicing on all the dance machine at r3play?

I will never tell....



LOL as a thought - should that I have entered the contest of DDR Dance Dance Revolution - they would have to rename it from DDR to RRD (Requires Repairs Done) as I am a little on the larger side =)

wow i hope the new rom has a cd boot we can install whole os from a boot cd
like our pc

What, and sit there for 45 minutes watching an hourglass, while it installs the OS to the hardware....."just like a PC"?? :laughing

:D