iain.bennett@canremote.uucp (IAIN BENNETT) (07/10/90)
TO me, it's, was Commodore right in changing Kickstart to a chip? Or should she have left it on disk. I feel it should have been left on a disk! I mean Commdore is just getting money by changing all of the chips, and that is darned expensive. COMMODORE SHOULD HAVE LEFT KICK START ON DISK! ---
peter@cbmvax.commodore.com (Peter Cherna) (07/11/90)
In article <218c0522931d26990e14@canremote.uucp> iain.bennett@canremote.uucp (IAIN BENNETT) writes: >TO me, it's, was Commodore right in changing Kickstart to a chip? Or >should she have left it on disk. I feel it should have been left on a >disk! I mean Commdore is just getting money by changing all of the >chips, and that is darned expensive. The majority of Amiga computers (all Amiga 2000s, 500s, and 3000s) have their kickstart in ROMs. Only the Amiga 1000 was designed to load its Kickstart off disk. Some of your confusion may stem from the fact that many people upgraded to Workbench 1.3 (disk) but kept their Kickstart 1.2 (ROM). Kickstart 1.3 only added the ability to autoboot off a hard drive, so if you had no hard disk, Kickstart 1.2 was fine. There have been major changes in 2.0, and when you upgrade, you need both the Kickstart ROM and the Workbench disk. Peter -- Peter Cherna, Software Engineer, Commodore-Amiga, Inc. {uunet|rutgers}!cbmvax!peter peter@cbmvax.cbm.commodore.com My opinions do not necessarily represent the opinions of my employer. "This is a one line proof...if we start sufficiently far to the left."
will@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (William Chou) (07/12/90)
In article <218c0522931d26990e14@canremote.uucp> iain.bennett@canremote.uucp (IAIN BENNETT) writes: >TO me, it's, was Commodore right in changing Kickstart to a chip? Or >should she have left it on disk. I feel it should have been left on a >disk! I mean Commdore is just getting money by changing all of the >chips, and that is darned expensive. > >COMMODORE SHOULD HAVE LEFT KICK START ON DISK! >--- The original reason for moving Kickstart to ROM was cost. ROM chips are much cheaper than RAM chips. But, now with newer versions of the system software constantly changing (2.0 and later 3.0 ...), wouldn't it be a good idea to return to the original Writeable Control Store? Ram chips are cheap; so, wouldn't it be much more cost effective to introduce a 512k - 1meg WCS in the new machines, with maybe non-volitile RAM, to handle old and new versions of the system. All new versions can be placed on disk, allowing cheaper and thus, wider distribution. =============================================================================== // "Only Amigas Be Excellent to Yourself, And most of all... \\ // Make It And Be Excellent to Eachother. Be Excellent to Your Amiga! \X/ Possible" - Bill & Ted will@cunixf.columbia.edu
bleys@tronsbox.xei.com (Bill Cavanaugh) (07/14/90)
[stuff deleted about "constantly changing" system software and disk-based OS] No thanks. Let's see, WB 1.3 came out in October '88, and 2.0 is coming out in September '90... Constantly?? Nuh uh. That's actually pretty slow, and considering the reasonable cost (it's $45 for the 1.3 chip), I'd MUCH rather replace a ROM occaisionally than have to go through a half-dozen floppies before I could use the machine... Even with the hard drive, I'm too impatient to wait for the OS to load. /******************************************************************** * All of the above copyright by the below. * * Bill Cavanaugh uunet!tronsbox!bleys * * "You can only be young once, but you can be immature forever." * * Larry Anderson * ********************************************************************/
sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks) (07/16/90)
bleys@tronsbox.xei.com (Bill Cavanaugh) writes: |[stuff deleted about "constantly changing" system software and disk-based OS] |No thanks. Let's see, WB 1.3 came out in October '88, and 2.0 is coming out |in September '90... Constantly?? Nuh uh. That's actually pretty slow, and |considering the reasonable cost (it's $45 for the 1.3 chip), I'd MUCH rather |replace a ROM occaisionally than have to go through a half-dozen floppies |before I could use the machine... Even with the hard drive, I'm too |impatient to wait for the OS to load. What would be nice would be EEPROMS :-). You would load kickstart off of floppy into the EEPROMS, and it would remain their until you needed to load in an old kickstart for compatibility or upgrade to a new version. With EEPROMs you get the all the advantages of kickstart on a disk and in ROM. Plus it makes the OS user upgradable, rather than having the typical user having to take his machine in to get it upgraded. And CBM could just copy lots of disks rather than having to burn a bunch of ROMs each time. -- John Sparks | | D.I.S.K. 24hrs 2400bps. sparks@corpane.UUCP | | PH: (502) 968-DISK A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of. - Ogden Nash