Which KS ROMs? Which OS?
 

Hey all!

Amiga n00b here with a rev 6a Amiga 500. Currently has a TF536 installed with 64meg of memory and an IDE port. The KS ROM is 3.X (45.64), which I hear is a poor choice. Mainboard has 512K of chip memory and is modded to give me 1meg of chip memory when the 512K expansion/RTC is installed (which it is).

I know almost nothing about Amiga's so I'm coming here for some advice.

I am going to purchase a 4way KS ROM switcher. I know that I want KS 1.3 and DiagROM installed, but what should I put in the other two slots? I see my choices are 1.2, 2.0, 2.05, 3.0, 3.1, 3.1.4, 3.2, 3.9. I know that I need some kind of 3.? to use my TF536... but which?

Finally, is OS 3.1.4 good enough, or should I use OS 3.2?

I want to use and learn the Amiga, not just play games.

Welcome!

AmigaOS version numbers can be a bit confusing if you're new to the platform. From oldest to newest the release order of 3.x for the 500 is 3.1, 3.5, 3.9, 3.1.4, 3.2. (3.0 was only for the 1200 and 4000.)

3.5 and 3.9 ROMs do not exist (those OSes were a software-only upgrade), except for custom versions that users have compiled and burned themselves. Cloanto's 3.X ROM is largely - but not entirely - analogous to what a 3.9 ROM would have been.

To nitpick a bit, the 2.x release for the 500 was 2.04. (The actual 2.0-2.03 were essentially beta releases for early 3000s; 2.04 is the stable version) 2.05 was intended for the 600 and adds drivers for that machine's IDE port and PCMCIA slot. It's otherwise identical to 2.04. It will work perfectly fine in a 500 but there's little point to it unless you've added a 600-style IDE port - the TF536 *might* fall into that category, but if that board more broadly requires Kickstart 3 then this point is redundant.

Anyway, if you've got a 4-slot switcher with 1.3 and DiagROM already set, my recommendation is 3.1 and 3.2 for the remaining slots. 3.1 has decades of history behind it and is extremely well supported and stable. And you can install 3.9 on top of it if you later decide to do so. 3.2 incorporates almost all of the functionality of 3.9, including more modern hard drive support, plus many other subtle improvements, but it's still quite new and little issues/quirks are still being discovered.

There is almost no software that works on 2.04 but not 3.x which is why I left that one out. If you really want to make sure all your bases are covered, then go with 2.04 and 3.2. If you do install a 2.04 ROM make sure to use OS software version 2.1, which is a major improvement in ease-of-use.

3.1.4 is a halfway point between 3.1 and 3.2. Might as well go for either of those instead of 3.1.4. :)

You should probably get whatever release is most current (3.2 I think) for your non-gaming needs.

You already have 1.3 selected, which is a decent choice for gaming. However, most games were written for PAL machines and will barf on an NTSC machine.

Also, the older games which need 1.3, might also require stepping back to the 68000 processor, which typically shuts off any accelerator memory. This leaves you with 1meg total, which will be a serious issue if you also have a hard disk, as mounting the hard disk partitions consumes system memory.

I keep two machines, an OS 1.3 1.3 1MB A500 for playing disk games, and an expanded OS3.1 A2000 (accelerator, memory, hard disk) which I used when I was doing development work.

Can I ask what type of development you were using your Amiga for?

@Calab: You will see a lot of posts here about whdload, that will be your best bet as you won't have to worry about kickstart swapping, and the games will be run of your HD and alot of them have NTSC support which will help you Or you could just download the NTSC images.

By using whdload you can also use the same config to 'use your Amiga' whatever that implies? Make Music, 3D Rendering, Pixel Art, Programming, BBS?

Welcome to the forum :great