Conference hydra::amiga_v1

Re: .0

From what I gather, 1.3 is going to be a very minor release.  It is
pretty much just going to be the fast file system for hard disks and
autoboot devices.

At one time, I heard that improved printer support was going to be in
1.3, but I recently read something in Usenet that made it sound like
that is going to be in 1.4.

I think that the intent is that 1.3 will not be too different from 1.2
because Commodore wants to avoid requiring Amiga 500/2000 owners having
to upgrade ROMs for features only of interest to hard disk owners.

The 1.4 update is scheduled to be out late in '88.  That release will
be jam packed with new features.

I would expect both releases to be very compatible.  When 1.2 came out,
it got undeserved bad press because of the fast-ram-is-not-chip-ram
problem.  It came out just about the time that memory prices were
falling and more people were manufacturing memory boards.  So all the 1.1
programs that didn't work because they tried to use fast memory as
chip memory didn't work under 1.2 either.  However, since 1.2 always
configured fast memory automatically, and more people had fast memory,
1.2 got blamed.

>At one time, I heard that improved printer support was going to be in
>1.3, but I recently read something in Usenet that made it sound like
>that is going to be in 1.4.

I've got a friend who has a beta version of 1.3 and he says there is quite
a change in printer speed, depending on the printer, an increase of up
to six times as fast.  I haven't had a chance to see it but there is also
quite a change in preferences too.  Part of it is to set up the type of
monitor you have (resolution) and some other things that the new cpu will
have (some rumours that I have heard, Commodore will be announcing a new
machine within the next month or so).

    Harv Laser of Plink is beta-testing the new release of ProWrite.
    He swears it has an unbelievable Preferences printer menu, and the
    fonts etc all print at the maximum density your printer will allow,
    if you desire.
    
    ProWrite is being held until CBM OKs the release of the new printer
    drivers.

    
    I have heard may things about the upcomming V1.3/1.4 of kickstart
    and AMIGADOS.  One thing I am uncertain of about will be the
    autoboot feature.   One roomer states that the disk controller
    must be autoboot compatible.   Since I have a A2090 controller
    and its an not autoboot device,  Im out of luck.   Another roomer
    states that the new version of kickstart will look for a series
    of devices and try to boot the first available device,  such as
    floppy,  hard disk etc.  Can anyone shed any light on this so
    I may rest in peace.
    
    Thanks,
    Ira Chavis

Re: .4

I have read the Developer's newsletter on autoboot, so my information
source is authoritative.

Kickstart 1.3 will have the ability to autoboot.  That is the sole
difference between Kickstart 1.2 and 1.3.  Commodore has claimed that
there will even be no bug fixes made to Kickstart.  On the other hand,
Workbench 1.3 and all the other disk based software are open to changes.

Autoboot does require that an autoboot device have a special boot ROM
on it in order to be a potential boot device.  Anything that has an
autoboot rom is a potential boot device, be it a disk controller,
a RAM board, a ROM board, or something outrageous.  (The autoboot
architecture would allow for recoverable ram disk to be a boot
device, I suspect, IF the RAM board's manufacturer included an
autoboot ROM.)

When the system is booting, the Exec will check for a bootable floppy
in DF0:.  If it finds one, it boots from it.

If there is no bootable floppy in DF0:, the Exec checks the first expansion
device to see if it is bootable.  If so, it tries to boot from it.

If the first device is not a boot device, or if it failed to boot, the
Exec tries the second boot device...

If nothing is bootable, the Exec display's the "Hand" picture asking
for a bootable floppy to be put in DF0:.

Unfortunately, the current Commodore disk controller does not contain
a boot ROM.  I do not know if it can be modified to take a boot ROM
(I suspect not, because Commodore would be promising to sell boot
ROMs for it).  Commodore seems pretty quiet on the subject of when
they will have a controller that will come with a boot ROM.  However,
everyone assumes that they will have such a controller in the future.
It is sometimes referred to by the name A2090a.

Cheer up, your Startup-Sequence can transfer control from the floppy
to the hard disk fairly quickly.  Thus, the boot times should not be
very different between an autoboot hard disk and a floppy.

	From your description, it sounds like those of us with
	ROM-based versions of Kickstart (ie 500's and 2000's) are
	going to need a ROM-upgrade to support the autoboot feature
	of 1.3 -- Commodore's been real quiet about that part of it
	on Usenet too.

Re: .6

Yes, you need 1.3 in ROM or to make use of the ROM tags in RAM
feature in order to autoboot.

I suspect that Commodore is keeping the changes to Kickstart 1.3 so
minimal so that all the Amiga 500 and 2000 owners will not have to
upgrade until 1.4 comes out (a few months after 1.3, so they claim).

It seems that Commodore feels that it is very important to get autoboot
out the door early.  At the same time, they decided that some other
simple things (like better printer drivers) were safe to release.
So, they decided to do a quick release with the small stuff (1.3)
so that they wouldn't have such time pressure on the release that
included more ambitious functionality.

My speculation is that Commodore expects that everyone will quickly upgrade
to 1.3 of Workbench by buying another update package like the one for 1.2.
However, they expect that not too many Amiga 500 and 2000 customers will
want to bother installing new ROMs in their machine only for autoboot.
Thus, Commodore is making sure that there is only one difference between
Kickstart 1.2 and 1.3: autoboot.  That way no ones programs will care if
they are using Kickstart 1.2 or 1.3.

I expect that Commodore will make 1.3 ROMs available to those who
really want the upgrade.  I also expect that at some point all new
Amigas will be manufactured the new ROMs.  Commodore might make use
of the ROM tag magic to allow 1.2 ROMs to act like 1.3 ROMs after
the machine has booted once since being turned on.

I sort of expect the majority of people running with Kickstart 1.3
to be Amiga 1000 owners.  Most of the Amiga 500 and 2000 owners
will simply be using Workbench 1.3 with Kickstart 1.2.