LAVITSKY@RU-BLUE.ARPA (08/09/85)
From: Eric <LAVITSKY@RU-BLUE.ARPA> >Date: Fri, 9 Aug 85 12:32:55 EDT >From: Tom Hornick (CSC) <thornick@BRL.ARPA> >To: LAVITSKY@RUTGERS.ARPA >Subject: AmigaDOS not im ROM > >Eric, > Just curious as to whether the guy that posted the article on AmigaDOS >was correct about it not being in ROM? If it is true, do you happen to >know why it was removed from being in ROM? > >Thanks, Tom Hi, Yes, there is a 'Kickstart' disk that you must have on power up. The Amiga is still a little far ahead of the Mac and the ST in this regard. Both the Mac and the ST require that their 'finders' be loaded into RAM every time the machine is reset. The Amiga is a little more sophisticated. The Writable Control Store (WCS) is RAM that can be hardware locked. Once the OS is loaded into WCS, the information contained in WCS remains even through hardware resets. This provides an added level of flexibility and power to the Amiga OS designers. Additions and improvements to the OS can be made rather easily. The Mac finder was probably under development longer than AmigaDOS, and there are still problems with it today. The Mac designers and owners should be happy they didn't freeze it into ROM right away (though that is coming apparently). There is or may be still one major difference between the MAC, ST and the Amiga. The writable control store does not detract from user RAM. As far as I can tell it is there in place of ROM above and beyond the normal 256K user RAM (or 512K depending on what you've got). I should know something more definite soon. Eric ARPA: LAVITSKY@RUTGERS UUCP: ...{harvard,seismo,ut-sally,sri-iu,ihnp4!packard}!topaz!eric SNAIL: 16 Oak St., Flr 2 New Brunswick, NJ 08903 -------
richardt@orstcs.UUCP (richardt) (08/18/85)
One (minor) gripe. WCS is the wrong term. I don't know whether Commodore is using that term, but if they are, they're screwed up too. However, it's a reasonable mistake, so: WCS is a nice little beastie found on systems using microcoded processors. The Control Store of a microcoded processor holds the microcode for the instruction set. If you can write data into the store, you have a variable instruction set. In many cases, this writing can occur in real-time -- How's that for self-modifying code! It would be nice if we could get at the M68000's Control Store and play around with it, but alas no. In any case, WCS is NOT a place to stash your OS. BTW, I think commodore did the right think. From the sound of it, Amiga may be extremely versatile just because of this feature (It's not a bug!!!! Yeah!!! For once the marketing department tells the truth!). orstcs!richardt "'Twas brillig, and the slithey todes,"
knf@druxo.UUCP (FricklasK) (08/23/85)
However, the DOS does take up 130K of memory, quite a bit of a 256K machine. I assume most people would like a 512K configuration anyway, but even so it would be nice to have that 130K freed up by putting it in ROM. An article in this month's Personal Computing magazine said that the OS will, eventually, be put in ROM, but Commidore/Amiga has not yet said whether or not current buyers will be able to upgrade. There are several implications to this, the most interesting of which will be: I HATE it when write protection schemes *%$#! with the DOS, but if the DOS is in memory they (the companies who are more interested in protecting their pocketbooks than providing better software) will mess around in it, and also, hacks will be able to mess around in DOS, to provide extensions/bugfixes/modifications to the HI. I also noted that the trump card is essentially an entire PC clone in a $500 box. Does anyone know 1)whether this will use shared memory. 2) whether you will be able to run MS-DOS in an AmigaDos window. 3) When it will be available? 4) will files be transferable from AmigaDos to MSDOS? Two more question: You've got 6.44 Megabytes of memory to fill with what- ever you want, making a damn big ramdisk, and I'm sure I'll be able to find lots of ways to lock the machine. Is there a hardware reset (warm boot) that leave memory alone (or at least ramdisk memory)? And does anyone know if the graphics memory is shared or at least exapandable so that in CAD type applications we can create an ENORMOUS (I'm talking 4+MB) windows to scroll and pan and zoom around in? '`'`` Ken '`'`'` PS reply via mail or net. I think this is general interest type stuff, though.