jason@cbmami.UUCP (Jason Goldberg) (04/25/91)
I have a customer who is a comercial video game manufactuer, who has reached an agreement to produce stand-alone video games using A500 motherboards. There programers are busy getting up to speed on the Amiga, but one of their concerns is how they will be able to boot off an EPROM rather than a floppy disk. Their machines will not have floppies! Does anyone have any suggestions/pointers that I could pass along? Thanks, -Jason- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jason Goldberg UUCP: ucsd!serene!cbmami!jason Del Mar, CA
markv@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (04/25/91)
In article <1909c537.ARN0fa1@cbmami.UUCP>, jason@cbmami.UUCP (Jason Goldberg) writes: > > I have a customer who is a comercial video game manufactuer, who > has reached an agreement to produce stand-alone video games using A500 > motherboards. There programers are busy getting up to speed on the Amiga, > but one of their concerns is how they will be able to boot off an EPROM > rather than a floppy disk. Their machines will not have floppies! > Does anyone have any suggestions/pointers that I could pass along? Yes. If they dont want to use the Amiga OS, then they just burn the EPROMs with the code they want and replace the OS ROMs. On the Amiga, when the CPU twiddles the RESET lines, the CIAs reset, one of these bits forces the ROMs to Address 0x00 where the 68000 then loads the starting PC and SP from locations 0-7. When the OVERLAY bit in the CIA (B?) is set, then the ROMs move to 0x00F00000 where they normally reside. If they want to emulate a boot disk to use the OS, one thing to do is hang the EEPROMs off the exapnsion port emulating an AUTOCONFIG RAM board. The eproms get burned with a valid RAM image of whatever RAD looks like in RAM (including ROMtags, etc) so the system adds RAD to DOS, and then boots off it when it doesnt find any floppies. Or, another thing to do, would be emulate a hard disk type controller (AUTOBOOTING/AUTOCONFIG of course) that would use EPROMs to pretend to be a small disk, and then let the OS load the RigidDiskBlocks and FileSystem off of the EEPROMs and it would come up in dos. I think the RAD approach would be simpler, but much more prone to potential problems (ie: does ramb0.device *have* to be able to write, etc) and more portability problems. The "silicon disk" technique would more complex at first, but easier to change since its easier to figure out what an "image" of a disks data should be as opposed to RAD. Read/Write isn't a problem since the OS can boot from read only media. > Thanks, > > > -Jason- > > --------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Jason Goldberg UUCP: ucsd!serene!cbmami!jason > Del Mar, CA -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Mark Gooderum Only... \ Good Cheer !!! Academic Computing Services /// \___________________________ University of Kansas /// /| __ _ Bix: mgooderum \\\ /// /__| |\/| | | _ /_\ makes it Bitnet: MARKV@UKANVAX \/\/ / | | | | |__| / \ possible... Internet: markv@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
peterk@cbmger.UUCP (Peter Kittel GERMANY) (04/29/91)
In article <1909c537.ARN0fa1@cbmami.UUCP> jason@cbmami.UUCP writes: > > I have a customer who is a comercial video game manufactuer, who >has reached an agreement to produce stand-alone video games using A500 >motherboards. There programers are busy getting up to speed on the Amiga, >but one of their concerns is how they will be able to boot off an EPROM >rather than a floppy disk. Their machines will not have floppies! The only thing I can do is assure you that it is possible. One german company (sorry, forgot the name) sells (sold?) an EPROM drive on a normal A2000 card. I think you could fake a harddisk device during the autoconfig process and you have to provide a hddisk.device or similar handler that accesses your EPROMs just like a harddisk. Perhaps this is easier than I think. That mentioned card could hold the whole Workbench. -- Best regards, Dr. Peter Kittel // E-Mail to \\ Only my personal opinions... Commodore Frankfurt, Germany \X/ {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!cbmger!peterk
aliu@aludra.usc.edu (Alex C. Liu) (05/03/91)
In article <1176@cbmger.UUCP> peterk@cbmger.UUCP (Peter Kittel GERMANY) writes: >In article <1909c537.ARN0fa1@cbmami.UUCP> jason@cbmami.UUCP writes: >>motherboards. There programers are busy getting up to speed on the Amiga, >>but one of their concerns is how they will be able to boot off an EPROM >>rather than a floppy disk. Their machines will not have floppies! >The only thing I can do is assure you that it is possible. One german >company (sorry, forgot the name) sells (sold?) an EPROM drive on a >normal A2000 card. I think you could fake a harddisk device during the Why bother with all that? Cant you just replace the Commodore provided ROMs with your own ROM. After all, those games dont require multitasking, and usually Amiga game programmers kick out the OS anyways, so why leave it there and put your own? (You can always put your own OS like routines, and if it is as all those game programmers claim, you will do it anyways! -- _____________________________________________________________________________ Alejandro Liu |EMail: aliu@usc.edu |All mispellings are intentional 3131 Mc Clintock #151F |Voice: 213-745-2372 |Anything mentioned here is not Los Angeles, CA 90007 | |necessarily true.