pashdown@javelin.es.com (Pete Ashdown) (01/30/91)
bobl@pro-graphics.cts.com (Bob Lindabury, SysAdmin) writes: >Why is it that AMAX only uses the 128K roms? Why don't they make the AMAX II >able to use either the 128k OR the 512K roms. Seems kind of stupid to limit >you to emulating the old machines. Only the 128K ROMs are available to the public, this is because there are a lot of Mac Pluses that have been junked, and Apple _USED_ to have an upgrade deal that didn't require you to send back the ROMs. They are VERY strict about sending back any ROMs now. I also don't think a lot of Mac II's are headed for the junk heap (yet). So in order to use the 512K ROM, you would either have to pirate a ROM or disable a Mac II. Two options which aren't very appealing to Readysoft to promote. -- "I'm going under the table." - Bernard Shaw Pete Ashdown pashdown@javelin.sim.es.com ...uunet!javelin.sim.es.com!pashdown
jonka@microsoft.UUCP (Jonathan KAGLE) (02/06/91)
In article <7293@crash.cts.com> bobl@pro-graphics.cts.com (Bob Lindabury, SysAdmin) writes: >Why is it that AMAX only uses the 128K roms? Why don't they make the AMAX II >able to use either the 128k OR the 512K roms. Seems kind of stupid to limit >you to emulating the old machines. I don't know very much about the actual AMAX II product, but there seem to be some logical reasons behind this decision. - AMAX copies the ROMs into RAM and modifies the binary. The changes are made to absolute addresses and have a fixed size. ReadySoft would have to re-reverse engineer each type of ROM. - There are at least three kinds of 256K ROM and two kinds of 512K ROM. - Many (all?) of the new ROMs come in SIMMs, which are incompatible with the DIP sockets in AMAX. - Color QuickDraw is probably tough to hack, especially if you have only 512K of chip RAM. - There aren't very many ROM sets available for these new machines that are available on the market. -Jonathan