Is possible to load 3.1.4 ks via software on a 1200 with blizzard 030?

guybrush · 03 June 2021, 21:01

I am looking at 3.1.4, although the sheer price of getting the roms and the software is not trivial; I get that people need to make money, but as someone that make software for free and let others make a living by using for free my github code, I think that it would be great if there is a way to try out things before commit.

So I found from youtube a video of a person that did use a soft kick to update to 3.1.4 ROM, and then install on his A1200 with an ACA card, the OS. That seems to be a good test bench, since I am not committing to 50+ dollars bill (the software only version cost 19 dollars I believe? Which is much more acceptable, albeit still steep IMO), and it allow me to not swap physical ROM chips, unless I decide to commit.

Before buying the software download, I want to figure out if I can soft-kick my 3.1 A1200 with a Blizzard 030 card. I found no trace of anyone doing this, only "it may work"; so I am in the dark at this point.

Does anyone here knows if this would even work? At the current stage I just know that technically should be possible to soft load the kickstart and then once I make the partition, install the kickstart on the actual hard drive and have it install at boot; which is awesome since I can retain my original 3.1 roms in that way.

crazyc · 03 June 2021, 21:25

If you have 3.1 roms, you can just soft load the updated components via startup anyway.
But yes you can blizzkick the 3 1.4 roms if you have a b1230 (mk4?). (I do, over the top of my 3.0 roms)
Although given 3.2 is out i don't know if I would bother with 3 1.4?
For 3.2 I have actually ordered physical roms though. Just because I wanted to.

guybrush · 03 June 2021, 21:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by crazyc

If you have 3.1 roms, you can just soft load the updated components via startup anyway.
But yes you can blizzkick the 3 1.4 roms if you have a b1230 (mk4?). (I do, over the top of my 3.0 roms)
Although given 3.2 is out i don't know if I would bother with 3 1.4?
For 3.2 I have actually ordered physical roms though. Just because I wanted to.

Thanks, so it is actually possible to go the softkick way then. I found very little on the subject, but now I know the name of the util to use (blizzkick); so that is a great step forward.

I think my Blizzard is the MK4; got the amiga in storage now while I move, so can't neither turn it on nor open it up; but I should have a 1230 MK4. Is there a tutorial that show how to use the blizzkick? Otherwise I will give it a try using the readme and since I do not have the new kickstart file yet, I can try with 2.0 ks to see if it works.

BTW what would be the advantage of 3.2 over 3.14? I do not have a cd on my 1200, and the price of the CD is even more than the asked price for 3.1.4. Plus don't they both need new ROM anyway?

Jope · 04 June 2021, 07:15

Blizkick doesn't support extresbuffer with exec's newer than the one that shipped with 3.9, so in a way it's not as useful as it used to be for 3.1.4 or 3.2.

3.2 is a lot more mature than 3.1.4, I'm afraid 3.1.4 will be sort of doomed to be the 3.0 of modern times.

As written by crazyc, I also recommend using the OS provided loadmodule method if you have 3.1 ROMs to begin with.

crazyc · 04 June 2021, 09:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jope

Blizkick doesn't support extresbuffer with exec's newer than the one that shipped with 3.9, so in a way it's not as useful as it used to be for 3.1.4 or 3.2.

Oh did not know this. So is it the exec in the physical rom or the one being kicked that is the issue?

I currently have a machine with 3.0 roms that blizzkicks a 3.9 custom rom, and once the postman brings it I am putting 3.2 physical roms in there. Does that mean my 3.9 setup will be impacted? (Hopefully once my 3.2 system is setup i won't really go back to 3.9 but it will take a little time)

Cheers

crazyc · 04 June 2021, 09:33

@guybrush you have a great accelerator card so thats cool.
Easiest way is to have a cf card (or sd these days) as a hard drive. This can be setup on a pc with a cd drive using Winuae and then transferred to the amiga.

As mentioned already I don't think there is any point in 3.1.4 now. I toyed with it but was too used to the bells and whistles on 3.9. By the sounds of it 3.2 is much more complete and I am looking forwards to it becoming my daily driver and have ordered the cd and physical roms.

Jope · 04 June 2021, 11:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by crazyc

Oh did not know this. So is it the exec in the physical rom or the one being kicked that is the issue?

It's the one being kicked that needs patches in order to use the extresbuffer.

Quote:

I currently have a machine with 3.0 roms that blizzkicks a 3.9 custom rom, and once the postman brings it I am putting 3.2 physical roms in there. Does that mean my 3.9 setup will be impacted? (Hopefully once my 3.2 system is setup i won't really go back to 3.9 but it will take a little time)

You should be able to continue blizkicking the 3.9 custom ROM with 3.2 physical ROMs. Not 100% sure there aren't any gotchas with the method though, haven't had that much time to play with 3.2 yet. :-) But as far as I see it, the Blizzard card will present the soft kicked ROM to the hardware at boot, so your physical 3.2 ROM would not have a chance to become initialized at all.

Jope · 04 June 2021, 11:51

By the way, looking at the installer scripts for 3.2, many places check for a minimum of V39 and some of the texts even say outright that you need at least 3.0. It could be that you're able to get it working with a 3.0 ROM if you don't mind having not being able to use the entire disk from cold boot. Again, haven't done any tests. :-)

guybrush · 04 June 2021, 22:15

Thanks, so 3.2 is the way to go then. Although the problem of the ROM is still there.

To be honest; I am not keen on changing ROM chips; while I can trust Commodore and their extensive knowledge (and know who worked on the Amiga), I can't say the same for Hyperion; so I am more inclined to keep my stock 3.1 ROM as hardware ROM and switch to 3.2 ROM only when using WB (which realistically is 80% of my time, but I often just use floppy too, especially when I just want to play a quick game or want to explore the thousands of magazine floppy and PD I have on my gotek).

One thing is not clear to me: I hear you talking about "loadmodule"; which is something new to me; where I can learn more about it? Also I see that some companies sell the OS on CF directly as option; would that allow me to use 3.2 without the new roms, since the loadmodule is set on it already? Honestly that would be the best solution to me; since I can backup the WB partition and make my own SD/CF card and not have to worry about having to set up the ROM via blizkick. Is that a thing or am I totally off? Since the extra CF card is 20 dollars more, if that is worth to avoid the hassle I am all for it.

guybrush · 04 June 2021, 22:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jope

By the way, looking at the installer scripts for 3.2, many places check for a minimum of V39 and some of the texts even say outright that you need at least 3.0. It could be that you're able to get it working with a 3.0 ROM if you don't mind having not being able to use the entire disk from cold boot. Again, haven't done any tests. :-)

Right you are, I think I saw something related to that. The specs say that you need at least 3.0 ROM, although that won't allow you to use the extra features in 3.2 ROM. If it is just a matter of not having large drive support out of the box, I can always use PFS3 file system, as I already do with my current SD card...

Is there anyone that can confirm what is actually precluded to users, if I have 3.2 using 3.1 ROM ?

Lisko · 04 June 2021, 23:00

You can leave the 3.0/3.1 phisical rom in it. Just install 3.2, copy 3.2 kickstart somewhere, install blizkick in C: and edit startup-sequence by putting on top:

Code:

 BlizKick path:to/kick32.rom

Finally remove or comment any loadmodule line and reboot.

Thomas Richter · 04 June 2021, 23:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by guybrush

One thing is not clear to me: I hear you talking about "loadmodule"; which is something new to me; where I can learn more about it?

Probably from Aminet, or from its author?

It's just a generic "replace my ROM modules for me", or a more configurable variant of Os 3.9 "ROM Updates". Essentially, it allows you to load all ROM modules from HD during bootstrap, dynamically, at the cost of a reboot.

BTW, Hyperion does not have any "Amiga knowledge", but Hyperion hasn't made 3.2 either. Their authors did, and Hyperion just provided the IP.

guybrush · 05 June 2021, 02:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lisko

You can leave the 3.0/3.1 phisical rom in it. Just install 3.2, copy 3.2 kickstart somewhere, install blizkick in C: and edit startup-sequence by putting on top:

Code:

 BlizKick path:to/kick32.rom

Finally remove or comment any loadmodule line and reboot.

Wow, that is really simple! Just one line basically; I guess I can go with it then

guybrush · 05 June 2021, 02:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

Probably from Aminet, or from its author?

It's just a generic "replace my ROM modules for me", or a more configurable variant of Os 3.9 "ROM Updates". Essentially, it allows you to load all ROM modules from HD during bootstrap, dynamically, at the cost of a reboot.

BTW, Hyperion does not have any "Amiga knowledge", but Hyperion hasn't made 3.2 either. Their authors did, and Hyperion just provided the IP.

Thanks for the clarification. Is there an advantage to use this instead of using the bliz app? I guess this is more of a generic solution for the ones that does not have a Blizzard card.

Jope · 05 June 2021, 10:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by guybrush

Thanks for the clarification. Is there an advantage to use this instead of using the bliz app? I guess this is more of a generic solution for the ones that does not have a Blizzard card.

It's a generic solution + everything is done for you by the installer script.

Jope · 06 June 2021, 13:02

Well, tried it on my A4000 CSMK2 3.0 .. unfortunately loadmodule was not able to load the modules without a crash on reboot, so I ended up going for a 3.2 ROM. So for the time being you'll probably have an easier life by blizkicking 3.2 as the first thing in your startup-sequence.

guybrush · 07 June 2021, 07:29

I see, so the only way to go is to use blizkick then. That's OK; I can just add the line in my startup sequence and keep it as is; I am planning to make a SD just for 3.2 on a 32 GB card; and keep my current 16 GB card for my 3.1 build. Thanks for giving it a try!

03 June 2021, 21:01	#1
guybrush Registered User Join Date: Jul 2015 Location: usa Posts: 243	Is possible to load 3.1.4 ks via software on a 1200 with blizzard 030? I am looking at 3.1.4, although the sheer price of getting the roms and the software is not trivial; I get that people need to make money, but as someone that make software for free and let others make a living by using for free my github code, I think that it would be great if there is a way to try out things before commit. So I found from youtube a video of a person that did use a soft kick to update to 3.1.4 ROM, and then install on his A1200 with an ACA card, the OS. That seems to be a good test bench, since I am not committing to 50+ dollars bill (the software only version cost 19 dollars I believe? Which is much more acceptable, albeit still steep IMO), and it allow me to not swap physical ROM chips, unless I decide to commit. Before buying the software download, I want to figure out if I can soft-kick my 3.1 A1200 with a Blizzard 030 card. I found no trace of anyone doing this, only "it may work"; so I am in the dark at this point. Does anyone here knows if this would even work? At the current stage I just know that technically should be possible to soft load the kickstart and then once I make the partition, install the kickstart on the actual hard drive and have it install at boot; which is awesome since I can retain my original 3.1 roms in that way.

04 June 2021, 23:00	#11
Lisko Registered User Join Date: Mar 2021 Location: Avellino, Italy Posts: 170	You can leave the 3.0/3.1 phisical rom in it. Just install 3.2, copy 3.2 kickstart somewhere, install blizkick in C: and edit startup-sequence by putting on top: Code: BlizKick path:to/kick32.rom Finally remove or comment any loadmodule line and reboot.

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03 June 2021, 21:25	#2
crazyc Registered User Join Date: May 2012 Location: Gravesend - UK Posts: 927	If you have 3.1 roms, you can just soft load the updated components via startup anyway. But yes you can blizzkick the 3 1.4 roms if you have a b1230 (mk4?). (I do, over the top of my 3.0 roms) Although given 3.2 is out i don't know if I would bother with 3 1.4? For 3.2 I have actually ordered physical roms though. Just because I wanted to.

04 June 2021, 07:15	#4
Jope - Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Helsinki / Finland Age: 43 Posts: 9,868	Blizkick doesn't support extresbuffer with exec's newer than the one that shipped with 3.9, so in a way it's not as useful as it used to be for 3.1.4 or 3.2. 3.2 is a lot more mature than 3.1.4, I'm afraid 3.1.4 will be sort of doomed to be the 3.0 of modern times. As written by crazyc, I also recommend using the OS provided loadmodule method if you have 3.1 ROMs to begin with.

04 June 2021, 09:33	#6
crazyc Registered User Join Date: May 2012 Location: Gravesend - UK Posts: 927	@guybrush you have a great accelerator card so thats cool. Easiest way is to have a cf card (or sd these days) as a hard drive. This can be setup on a pc with a cd drive using Winuae and then transferred to the amiga. As mentioned already I don't think there is any point in 3.1.4 now. I toyed with it but was too used to the bells and whistles on 3.9. By the sounds of it 3.2 is much more complete and I am looking forwards to it becoming my daily driver and have ordered the cd and physical roms.

04 June 2021, 11:51	#8
Jope - Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Helsinki / Finland Age: 43 Posts: 9,868	By the way, looking at the installer scripts for 3.2, many places check for a minimum of V39 and some of the texts even say outright that you need at least 3.0. It could be that you're able to get it working with a 3.0 ROM if you don't mind having not being able to use the entire disk from cold boot. Again, haven't done any tests. :-)

04 June 2021, 22:15	#9
guybrush Registered User Join Date: Jul 2015 Location: usa Posts: 243	Thanks, so 3.2 is the way to go then. Although the problem of the ROM is still there. To be honest; I am not keen on changing ROM chips; while I can trust Commodore and their extensive knowledge (and know who worked on the Amiga), I can't say the same for Hyperion; so I am more inclined to keep my stock 3.1 ROM as hardware ROM and switch to 3.2 ROM only when using WB (which realistically is 80% of my time, but I often just use floppy too, especially when I just want to play a quick game or want to explore the thousands of magazine floppy and PD I have on my gotek). One thing is not clear to me: I hear you talking about "loadmodule"; which is something new to me; where I can learn more about it? Also I see that some companies sell the OS on CF directly as option; would that allow me to use 3.2 without the new roms, since the loadmodule is set on it already? Honestly that would be the best solution to me; since I can backup the WB partition and make my own SD/CF card and not have to worry about having to set up the ROM via blizkick. Is that a thing or am I totally off? Since the extra CF card is 20 dollars more, if that is worth to avoid the hassle I am all for it.

06 June 2021, 13:02	#16
Jope - Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Helsinki / Finland Age: 43 Posts: 9,868	Well, tried it on my A4000 CSMK2 3.0 .. unfortunately loadmodule was not able to load the modules without a crash on reboot, so I ended up going for a 3.2 ROM. So for the time being you'll probably have an easier life by blizkicking 3.2 as the first thing in your startup-sequence.

07 June 2021, 07:29	#17
guybrush Registered User Join Date: Jul 2015 Location: usa Posts: 243	I see, so the only way to go is to use blizkick then. That's OK; I can just add the line in my startup sequence and keep it as is; I am planning to make a SD just for 3.2 on a 32 GB card; and keep my current 16 GB card for my 3.1 build. Thanks for giving it a try!

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