24 Feb
1999
24 Feb
'99
5:58 a.m.
Hi,
Are there any people who have Amiga 1000s on this list? If so, please contact
me, even if you can't help directly with the things mentioned below.
Boot ROM
--------
Inside the A1000 there is a boot ROM whose purpose is to load Kickstart from
disk. In normal use -- after Kickstart is loaded -- this ROM is not visible.
I want to try and get the data from the boot ROM dumped to disk; it will be
interesting to disassemble this and see how it works.
To do this requires using a little trick (involving the RESET instruction),
which only works when Fast RAM is present. I can write a program to hopefully
allow the boot ROM data to be dumped. This would need to be run on an A1000
which has Fast RAM. Please let me know if you're interested in helping with
this.
Kickstart 27.5 and early Amiga demos
------------------------------------
Many years ago, I received a catalogue disk from an American company called
Chiron Conceptions Public Domain, who used to advertise in Amiga World
magazine.
Listed there were some very early Amiga demos, used for the Amiga launch in
1985. They require a pre-1.0 Kickstart, version 27.5, to work. I would really
like to get hold of any of these demos and Kickstart 27.5. Below is the
listing from the PD catalogue.
VERSION 27.5 DEMO DISKS
=======================
CC-001 --VERSION 27.5 KICKSTART
Prerelease version of Amiga Kickstart. Needed for some
disks. (NOTE: Will not work on the Amiga 500 or 2000).
CC-002 --AMIGA SHOW STOPPER PAK
Includes two of the demos shown at the Amiga debut at Lincoln Center:
Eagle Demo
Watch the eagle as it swoops over the digitized
mountain range. Listen to it's screams as it glides across your
screen! An endless loop demo.
Ballet Stills
A series of superb digitized graphic stills of a ballerina.
(NOTE:Requires Version 27.5 Kickstart (CC-001) and thus will
not run on the Amiga 500 or 2000).
CC-003 --ISLAND GRAPHICS DEMO SET
A two disk set of graphics pictures and animations
demonstrating the Amiga. Very nicely done.
(Requires external disk drive & Version 27.5 Kickstart-(CC-001)
and thus will not run on the Amiga 500 or 2000).
CC-004 --ELECTRONIC ARTS GRAPHICS DEMO
A two disk set demonstrating Amiga's music, graphic,
and voice abilities. Includes digitized voice, scenes from EA's
Amiga software, music, and digitized photos.(NOTE: Requires 2
drives, 512K, and Version 27.5 KickStart (CC-001) and thus will
not run on the Amiga 500 or 2000).
Regards,
-- Mark
24 Feb
24 Feb
8:20 a.m.
At 04:58 PM 2/24/99 +0000, Mark wrote:
Listed there were some very early Amiga demos, used for the Amiga launch in
1985. They require a pre-1.0 Kickstart, version 27.5, to work. I would really
like to get hold of any of these demos and Kickstart 27.5. Below is the
listing from the PD catalogue.
I've got these demo disks, and this early Kickstart disk.
- John
8:34 a.m.
At 07:27 PM 2/24/99 -0000, you wrote:
No, that's the point - Amiga Kickstart was the ROM, loaded from disk
into RAM. The Workbench OS disk was loaded second, after the Kickstart.
- John
I want to try
and get the data from the boot ROM dumped to disk; it will be
interesting to disassemble this and see how it works.
So it wouldn't be useful to you if I simply pulled the ROMs out of the Amiga
and read them using an EPROM programmer? 
9:37 a.m.
At 07:27 PM 2/24/99 -0000, you wrote:
No, that's the point - Amiga Kickstart was the ROM, loaded from disk
into RAM. The Workbench OS disk was loaded second, after the Kickstart.
No, _you_ missed the point. The boot ROMs in the A1000 are only smart enough
to suck in the KickStart disk. Amiga KickStart _behaves_ like a ROM does in
other machines, but isn't. Same goes for the A3000 (although the original
A3K ROMs happened to have an embedded 1.4 image). The Kickstart image gets
stuffed into the WCS daughter card in the A1000 (or into FAST RAM in the
A3000), then a flag gets flipped to map the newly loaded Kickstart image
over top of the boot ROMs.
If you are trying to read the physical ROMs to a disk, then pulling them
and sticking them in an EPROM reader/writer will do what you need.
If you are trying to suck Kickstart out of the machine, then the real
ROMs are irrelevant.
-ethan
I want to
try and get the data from the boot ROM dumped to disk; it will be
interesting to disassemble this and see how it works.
So it wouldn't be useful to you if I simply pulled the ROMs out of the Amiga
and read them using an EPROM programmer?
9:53 a.m.
At 03:37 PM 2/24/99 -0500, Ethan Dicks wrote:
Thank you, Professor Explication, for elucidating my summary.
- John
No, that's the point - Amiga Kickstart was the ROM, loaded from disk
into RAM. The Workbench OS disk was loaded second, after the Kickstart.
No, _you_ missed the point.
10:23 a.m.
At 03:37 PM 2/24/99 -0500, Ethan Dicks wrote:
Thank you, Professor Explication, for elucidating my summary.
Not quite. You said (briefly) "Amiga Kickstart was the ROM...", I said
(verbosely) that there are ROMs, and there is Kickstart that acts like
ROM acts on other computers. If I understand the original request, it was
regarding the contents of the physical EPROMs on the A1000 montherboard,
not the contents of the WCS board after Kickstart has loaded.
-ethan
No, that's the point - Amiga Kickstart was the ROM, loaded from disk
into RAM. The Workbench OS disk was loaded second, after the Kickstart.
No, _you_ missed the point. 
11:36 a.m.
On Wed, 24 Feb 1999, Ethan Dicks wrote:
My first exposure to "WCS" was in the context of microcode - on a VAX-11/750.
I, too, was surprised to see them reuse "WCS" on the A1000, given what it does.
The only place I've seen the term "slushware" used is on the DECmate boxes.
AFAIK, its use there matches your use here.
-ethan
The Kickstart image gets stuffed into the WCS
daughter card in the A1000
Was I the only one bothered by the Amiga guys calling this a Writable
Control Store? Call it slushware, but WCS means microcode to me. 
12:33 p.m.
Ethan Dicks <erd(a)infinet.com> wrote:
The only place I've seen the term
"slushware" used is on the DECmate boxes.
AFAIK, its use there matches your use here.
Not really. The slushware on a DECmate is in an entirely different address
space from user code, and can only be invoked by trapped I/O instructions
and the like. It is much more like the System Management Mode of the recent
x86 processors (late-486-era to present).
The Kickstart code on the Amiga is the normal operating system in the
normal address space, and directly interacts with user code.
12:21 p.m.
John Foust wrote:
No, that's the point - Amiga Kickstart was the
ROM, loaded from disk
into RAM. The Workbench OS disk was loaded second, after the Kickstart.
Well, if it's the Kickstart code you're trying to extract, I don't understand
why you need to do wacky things with the RESET instruction and fast memory.
The Kickstart code is right on the floppy disk, plain as day.
1:05 p.m.
Eric Smith wrote:
John Foust wrote:
> No, that's the point - Amiga Kickstart was
the ROM, loaded from disk
> into RAM. The Workbench OS disk was loaded second, after the Kickstart.
Well, if it's the Kickstart code you're trying
to extract, I don't understand
why you need to do wacky things with the RESET instruction and fast memory.
The Kickstart code is right on the floppy disk, plain as day.
*sigh* Should I get involved? It's really not that complicated.
Amiga 1000 Newer Amigas
1. Using "pre-boot" ROM,
load Kickstart from disk;
stash Kickstart on daughterboard
and switch off "pre-boot" ROM.
2. Using Kickstart "ROM" (on the 1. Using Kickstart ROM,
daugherboard), load Workbench OS load Workbench OS from disk.
from disk.
3. The OS is booted now. 2. The OS is booted now.
John (or whoever -- I can't keep track!) wants to extract the "pre-boot"
ROM
that is unique to the Amiga 1000. Not the Kickstart ROM, not the Kickstart
disk image, not the Workbench OS. The RESET instruction is just a fancy
means to write a program (which runs after the OS has been booted) which
switches the switched-out ROM back in. As other people have pointed out,
putting the actual chip into a ROM reader is an alternate solution.
I must say that one of the few Amigas I've used was a 1000, and I remember
the boot process all too well. It was very slow without a hard drive!
All the "pre-boot" ROM does (as far as I can tell) is to show an animation
of a disk being inserted, and read a bunch of sectors from the disk, and
switch itself off.
-- Derek
9276
days inactive
9276
days old
11 comments
6 participants
participants (6)
-
doug＠blinkenlights.com -
dpeschel＠u.washington.edu -
erd＠infinet.com -
eric＠brouhaha.com -
jfoust＠threedee.com -
mark_k＠iname.com