[News] AmigaOne Update from Alan Redhouse | ANN.lu |
Posted on 24-Jul-2002 22:17 GMT by Douglas McLaughlin | 106 comments View flat View list |
On the AmigaOne mailing list, Alan Redhouse from Eyetech posted the following update:
Many dev board purchasers were clearly motivated by the 10% discount
rather than their ability to contribute to the developer process. The
initial boards were therefore shipped to those who could make a real
contribution to developing drivers etc, and porting Linux/UAE
distributions. Their progress has been astounding IMO with no less
than 5 different linux distributions (SuSE, Debian, Mandrake, Yellow
Dog and TurboLinux) being ported within a couple of weeks. More...
Many dev board purchasers were clearly motivated by the 10% discount
rather than their ability to contribute to the developer process. The
initial boards were therefore shipped to those who could make a real
contribution to developing drivers etc, and porting Linux/UAE
distributions. Their progress has been astounding IMO with no less
than 5 different linux distributions (SuSE, Debian, Mandrake, Yellow
Dog and TurboLinux) being ported within a couple of weeks.
However the Softex open firmware we had originally shipped with the
dev boards (incidently as seen on the Pegasos video) has several
shortcomings (although this has been used to boot the 5 linux
distributions and the OS4 kernel) and we are currently
developing/extending the alternative PPCBoot open firmware for use on
the production AmigaOne boards. This will allow us to build in Amiga-
specific boot etc options, a well as a more comprehensive multi-boot
environment.
We are not shipping the remainder of the dev boards (or any of the
user boards) until this code is complete because of the expense of
shipping update ROMs and chip changing tools. This is anticipated to
be towards the end of August.
This revision to the boot ROM is being undertaken by Hyperion as part
of the work necessary for booting OS4 on the A1.
Meanwhile the Amiga Inc club membership/coupon program results
(coupled with our own market extrapolation processes) means that the
future of the AmigaOne is in no doubt.
Finally several people have asked us why we are not delivering the A1
board to Linux users in advance of the release of OS4. Well there are
two main reasons:
1 - This is a product we are producing for the Amiga market and IMO
it is proper that the Amiga community get their hands on it first.
2 - I still cannot see why there would be a significant market for
Linux on the A1 given that the main focus of Linux is the x86
platform, which - because of sheer sales volumes - will always be an
order of magnitude cheaper than a ppc-based product.
Hope this helps
Alan
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AmigaOne Update from Alan Redhouse : Comment 41 of 106 | ANN.lu |
Posted by takemehomegrandma on 25-Jul-2002 11:28 GMT | In reply to Comment 12 (cOrpse): > The amigaOne *hardware* certainly looks finished,
Yes it does, doesn't it?
> and the *amiga OS* firmware can only be produced when the Os 4 project is at
> that stage
What Amiga OS Firmware? There is absolutely *no need* for an Amiga OS Firmware whatsoever! But they are making one anyway!
> but you have to consider the way in which amiga Os currently boots itself
> from harddrive ... The point is it *doesn't*
Of course it does! You cant just turn on the computer and start using it. You could on the C64, but you have never been able to do that on the Amiga.
> AmigaOs is there when you turn the machine on from *rom* and then loads
> extension type software from the harddrive. Therefor a true port of the
> amigaOS source is going to need somewhere in the hardware to spring from or
> a bios that will pull it from the harddrive much like the IA64 platform.
Remember that the old Amiga architecture is from a time when there hardly were no hard drives at all, and certainly not for the Amiga. Everything was floppy based. The original Amiga (the Amiga 1000) did not have kickstart ROM's, you had to use a floppy to load it. That was 'extra job', and therefore they started to use a kickstart ROM instead. The ROM contains *PARTS* of the OS (not the whole OS as we recognizes it). The exec was kickstarted along with some processes for hardware testing, and a process that waited to be able to load the rest of the OS. Basicly, the kickstart did much the same job as todays BIOS'es, and besides that it contained some parts of the OS, not because it was necessary to have it that way, but because it was convenient in a floppy-only envireonment. To have some parts of the OS preloaded in the memory reduced the use of the slow floppy and reduced the amount of disc swaps. But that was then, and this is now.
There is nothing that says that there HAS to be that way. Not today. You know, ROM's are quite a bit slower than todays RAM memories. Perhaps you remember that there were tools that copied the ROM into fast RAM in order to speed things up? Perhaps you have used a "soft-kick" (or what they were called, I cant remember) to boot a newer ROM image in order to use a later version of the OS without the expensive process of changing ROM's? It's quite possible allright!
Only the most important things should be in ROM. Everything that is needed to set up the hardware. But then the power should be turned over to the user and his/her choices.
Pegasos has an optional Disc-On-Chip of 32 megabytes. That could be a way if you want to make a setup without discs. That solution is very nice and exciting... as an *OPTION*! You should not *TIE UP* the users with ROM's and no choices. |
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