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[News] individual Computers: New products, new cooperationsANN.lu
Posted on 02-Jun-2003 12:56 GMT by Jens Schönfeld41 comments
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New product: Kickflash OS4
New product: RR-net
Transparent C64 cartridge cases
Lyra back in stock
New product: Kickflash OS4
Kickflash was announced several years ago, but never released due to licensing problems. With the planning of the new PPC native OS4 for all Amiga computers with PPC CPU, Hyperion and individual Computers started a cooperation more than a year ago (may 2002). The result of this cooperation is "Kickflash OS4", a highly optimized flashrom card for the Zorro slot of classic Amigas. It reduces boot time of OS4 significantly, and comes at a very low price: 29,- EUR. Up-to-date flashrom chips allow up to 100.000 re-programming cycles. Kickflash OS4 will be available to betatesters this summer. Mass production will start in time for the release of OS4, so people will have the choice between tailormade solutions by all cooperation partners (also see ALGOR/ROMulus by E3B).

New product: RR-Net
Especially for the Retro Replay and the C-One there will a networking card for the C64 before the end of this summer. Together with Adam Dunkels, the author of the web-enabled Contiki operating system, the first drivers for this 10MBit-card have been made. Contiki even has web-server functions that can be seen on the internet: The server http://www.tfe.c64.org is running on a stock C64 with a similar networking card! RR-Net will be available in August 2003 for 50,- EUR.

Transparent C64 cartridge cases
Due to the high demand, cases for the nearly sold-out Retro Replay will be available from June 24th, 2003 on. If there's enough demand, we might also produce other colours in addition to the transparent ones. To find out what colours that could be, the hacker-group Cyberpunx has setup a Voting-page. The price per case will be 4,- EUR, no matter what colour you choose.

Lyra back in stock
The Lyra keyboard adapter that allows using a PC keyboard on Amiga computers will be back in stock on June 24th. We apologize for the shipment delays - we were not prepared for the high demand of this product. A big thank-you goes out to our customers who were obviously so satisfied with their Lyra adapter that they recommended it to all their friends.
individual Computers: New products, new cooperations : Comment 1 of 41ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 02-Jun-2003 11:38 GMT
>>Kickflash OS4 will be available to betatesters this summer. Mass production will start in time for the release of OS4, so people will have the choice between tailormade solutions by all cooperation partners.<<

Hmm, ok, so OS 4 end of the year 2004? And betatest of OS 4 didn't even start yet? Wow!
individual Computers: New products, new cooperations : Comment 2 of 41ANN.lu
Posted by Peter Gordon on 02-Jun-2003 11:42 GMT
In reply to Comment 1 (Anonymous):
I love it when people derive "facts" from ambiguity. So beta testing of OS4 couldn't possibly start until they had this product?
individual Computers: New products, new cooperations : Comment 3 of 41ANN.lu
Posted by Amon_Re on 02-Jun-2003 11:45 GMT
In reply to Comment 2 (Peter Gordon):
Be carefull, you are wandering into the mind of the trolls!

Seriously, some people can jump to conclusions from the strangest things :)

Cheers,
individual Computers: New products, new cooperations : Comment 4 of 41ANN.lu
Posted by Lolly on 02-Jun-2003 12:21 GMT
In reply to Comment 1 (Anonymous):
Or it could mean available to betatesters in the very near future (its almost summer now)...

We shall see.
individual Computers: New products, new cooperations : Comment 5 of 41ANN.lu
Posted by Sam Smith on 02-Jun-2003 12:24 GMT
In reply to Comment 1 (Anonymous):
'Kickflash OS4 will be available to betatesters this summer.' Not OS4 but the KickFlash product.

---
Sam
individual Computers: New products, new cooperations : Comment 6 of 41ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 02-Jun-2003 12:32 GMT
In reply to Comment 1 (Anonymous):
It's been said almost a million times everywhere that betatest of OS4 and its modules has started a long time ago. The annoucement mentions betatesting of their product (the flashroms) not the OS. Learn how to read people.
individual Computers: New products, new cooperations : Comment 7 of 41ANN.lu
Posted by Some Farker on 02-Jun-2003 13:01 GMT
Wow, a NIC for a C64. I wonder if it'd work on a C128?

Heh, C128 + Wheels + a Lynx-based web-browser. Imagine the poor tech from your broadband provider that showed up at your house to hook that mess together :-)
individual Computers: New products, new cooperations : Comment 8 of 41ANN.lu
Posted by StAn on 02-Jun-2003 13:12 GMT
Does the Lyra adapter recognize when several arrow keys are pressed at the same time, and also doesn't have the other bugs of the Hellbox adapter ?
individual Computers: New products, new cooperations : Comment 9 of 41ANN.lu
Posted by takemehomegrandma on 02-Jun-2003 13:39 GMT
> New product: Kickflash OS4

OK, so it reduces boot time (/me thinking about how fast MorphOS boots without this) but asiedes from that, what's the purpose of this? This is the notorious dongle, right?

> Kickflash OS4 will be available to betatesters this summer. Mass production
> will start in time for the release of OS4

Well, that may give a hint on the availability of OS4. Provided that the betatesters really get their boards some time this summer, how long time do they need for testing it thoroughly? Let's say late summer/fall 2003. If everything goes well and only slight modifications is needed, mass production can start late fall/winter 2003. I'd say that the CSPPC version of OS4 will be released this winter, perhaps in time for christmas this year. What do you say, is that a too optimistic or too pessimistic estimate?
individual Computers: New products, new cooperations : Comment 10 of 41ANN.lu
Posted by redrumloa on 02-Jun-2003 13:40 GMT
In reply to Comment 7 (Some Farker):
IIRC it actually plugs into the Retro Replay cart, so it would work on a C128. GIMME GIMME GIMME! I want to give it a spin with Tikiki, JOS etc.
individual Computers: New products, new cooperations : Comment 11 of 41ANN.lu
Posted by takemehomegrandma on 02-Jun-2003 13:48 GMT
In reply to Comment 7 (Some Farker):
Yes, this is really cool. But my broadband connection is 100 MBit *only*. :-(
Well, I guess that one could allways use another computer as a bridge ...
individual Computers: New products, new cooperations : Comment 12 of 41ANN.lu
Posted by takemehomegrandma on 02-Jun-2003 13:50 GMT
BTW, I think that Individual Computers is one of the coolest companies around! Thank you!
:-)
individual Computers: New products, new cooperations : Comment 13 of 41ANN.lu
Posted by Lolly on 02-Jun-2003 14:06 GMT
Thinking about it, what does kickflash actually do?
individual Computers: New products, new cooperations : Comment 14 of 41ANN.lu
Posted by reflect on 02-Jun-2003 14:06 GMT
In reply to Comment 9 (takemehomegrandma):
> New product: Kickflash OS4

takemehomegrandma said:
"OK, so it reduces boot time (/me thinking about how fast MorphOS boots without this) but asiedes from that, what's the purpose of this? This is the notorious dongle, right?"

no, if you read it again, you'll see that it is zorro-based, to speed up OS4 on older computers. The new A1's already have a programmable rom on the boards, with some empty space in them.
individual Computers: New products, new cooperations : Comment 15 of 41ANN.lu
Posted by Peter Gordon on 02-Jun-2003 14:11 GMT
In reply to Comment 9 (takemehomegrandma):
> OK, so it reduces boot time (/me thinking about how fast MorphOS boots without this)

Are you referring to the Pegasos here? because AFAIK MorphOS 1.x for CSPPC hasn't been released :) Kickflash OS4 allows the KS4.0 ROM replacement code to be available from coldboot on systems with Kickstart 3.1 ROM chips, saving a reboot. It has nothing to do with the relevant boot times of OS4 and MorphOS on PowerPC motherboards...
individual Computers: New products, new cooperations : Comment 16 of 41ANN.lu
Posted by Jens Schönfeld on 02-Jun-2003 15:14 GMT
In reply to Comment 7 (Some Farker):
RR-net on the Retro Replay works fine with the C128. Retro Replay does NOT force the C128 in C64 mode, and the accessory connector that carries the RR-Net is available in C128 memory space. So yes, a lynx-based browser in 80-column mode and a graphics viewer on the 40-colum screen at the same time, how about that :-)?

Jens Schönfeld
individual Computers: New products, new cooperations : Comment 17 of 41ANN.lu
Posted by Don Cox on 02-Jun-2003 15:16 GMT
In reply to Comment 15 (Peter Gordon):
"Are you referring to the Pegasos here? because AFAIK MorphOS 1.x for CSPPC hasn't been released :) Kickflash OS4 allows the KS4.0 ROM replacement code to be available from coldboot on systems with Kickstart 3.1 ROM chips, saving a reboot. It has nothing to do with the relevant boot times of OS4 and MorphOS on PowerPC motherboards..."

So it could also be used for an integrated OS 3.9 ROM ? Again saving a reboot.
individual Computers: New products, new cooperations : Comment 18 of 41ANN.lu
Posted by Jens Schönfeld on 02-Jun-2003 15:19 GMT
In reply to Comment 8 (StAn):
Yes, Lyra supports pressing several keys at the same time. Playing a game with the cursor keys is no problem.

The failure of other keyboard adapters is that they send a keyup-code to the Amiga as soon as another key is pressed. Big mistake on games! Lyra translates every single keystoke, including the "make" code for pushing the key down, and the "break" code when the corresponding key is released again.

If all this is too complicated, just accept that Lyra will serve your needs :-)

Jens Schönfeld
individual Computers: New products, new cooperations : Comment 19 of 41ANN.lu
Posted by Anbjorn on 02-Jun-2003 15:26 GMT
In reply to Comment 13 (Lolly):
The original old Amiga ROM chip isnt capable of running OS4.0, so an upgrade is needed. Earlier this required you to replace your ROM chips with newer ones, unless you used a softkick-program.
This works like this: the Amiga first boots normally from the physical chips, and then launches the softkicker program that reads an updated ROM from a file on your harddisk and places it in memory. Then the Amiga reeboots using the ROM stored in memory.
Apart from using memory, it takes an extra rebooting to start up.

My guess is that kickflash makes the Amiga boot directly, using the ROM stored in the kickflash module, and by this saving the extra reboot.

Sounds like a very handy product. This way it will be very easy to upgrade your kickroms when a new version is available, no need do "surgery" to change chips to change ROM chips again.
individual Computers: New products, new cooperations : Comment 20 of 41ANN.lu
Posted by Lasse Kongo on 02-Jun-2003 15:35 GMT
In reply to Comment 11 (takemehomegrandma):
Maybe you could use a switch...
individual Computers: New products, new cooperations : Comment 21 of 41ANN.lu
Posted by StAn on 02-Jun-2003 17:52 GMT
In reply to Comment 18 (Jens Schönfeld):
Sounds good, Jens :)

Oh BTW, looks like you forgot to incude a link to your web site.
I'll have a look at this...
individual Computers: New products, new cooperations : Comment 22 of 41ANN.lu
Posted by StAn on 02-Jun-2003 17:56 GMT
In reply to Comment 18 (Jens Schönfeld):
Ah, too bad it doesn't work with Amiga keyboards.
individual Computers: New products, new cooperations : Comment 23 of 41ANN.lu
Posted by Henning Nielsen Lund [Denmark] on 02-Jun-2003 17:56 GMT
In reply to Comment 21 (StAn):
Link: http://ami.ga
individual Computers: New products, new cooperations : Comment 24 of 41ANN.lu
Posted by Doobrey on 02-Jun-2003 20:13 GMT
I`m still trying to figure out why go for a Zorro based card ??
For a start, anyone with a 1200, PPC and Mediator can`t use it..
Second, how many people have spare Zorro slots on an A4000? Dont most A4000 owners with a PPC use a PCI busboard thesedays?

I remember looking at the original KickFlash yonks ago, shame it couldn`t have been released then..just think, no more double booting for OS3.5 and 3.9.

Last night I downloaded the A500 FlashRom archive from aminet, looks great and can`t wait to dust off the old A500. It got me thinking about a 1200 or 4000 version. An A1200 version shouldn`t be too hard ( as long as you have no PowerFlyer etc in the ROM sockets)..but the A4000 is trickier thanks to CBMs idea of stashing them under the CPU board!
So why waste a Zorro slot when the original design didn`t??

Anyway, nice to see Jens doing some good stuff again.
individual Computers: New products, new cooperations : Comment 25 of 41ANN.lu
Posted by Michael Böhmer on 02-Jun-2003 20:49 GMT
In reply to Comment 24 (Doobrey):
Hi Doobrey,

> I`m still trying to figure out why go for a Zorro based card ??

It's rather simple. Either you go to the Kickstart socket, which is not very easily accessible (take the A4000 with the CPU board - I *love* it).
Or you go on Zorro and feature a bootloader in the ExpansionROM structure which does the job.

> For a start, anyone with a 1200, PPC and Mediator can`t use it..

Well, nobody said that PCI is always better than Zorro (erm, well, some people say, yes). There are three places in A1200 where bootable ROM can sit: in special PCMCIA cards, Zorro or the Kickstart socket (which is below the busboard then).

> Second, how many people have spare Zorro slots on an A4000? Dont most A4000
> owners with a PPC use a PCI busboard thesedays?

I don't think so. Zorro III does quite well. If speed is limited to Zorro III, why should one go for a higher speed bus behind the bottleneck ? This only will help with the CPU sitting directly on the PCI bus.

The reason for a cooperation of E3B and individual computers in this issue was to offer tailormade solution for people: if you've got a spare slot and don't need any other expansion (USB, ethernet), take the nice thing from Jens. If you need those expansions mentioned above, take a HIGHWAY + ROMulus or ALGOR. And if no Zorro is free anymore... well, OK, than you have a problem :)

Michael
individual Computers: New products, new cooperations : Comment 26 of 41ANN.lu
Posted by Peter Gordon on 02-Jun-2003 20:55 GMT
In reply to Comment 24 (Doobrey):
> Dont most A4000 owners with a PPC use a PCI busboard thesedays?

Mediator 4000 has Zorro III and PCI slots, which is how I can use a PowerFlyer Gold, and Repulse (and soon Algor) alongside my Voodoo, 100Mbit PCI Nic, and PCI TV card.
individual Computers: New products, new cooperations : Comment 27 of 41ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 02-Jun-2003 21:05 GMT
In reply to Comment 25 (Michael Böhmer):
>The reason for a cooperation of E3B and individual computers in this issue was >to offer tailormade solution for people: if you've got a spare slot and don't >need any other expansion (USB, ethernet), take the nice thing from Jens. If >you need those expansions mentioned above, take a HIGHWAY + ROMulus or ALGOR. >And if no Zorro is free anymore... well, OK, than you have a problem :)

I`ve got one Zorro slot left..saving it for a soundcard :(
Although I do have a Highway..but as I use it almost every day, I can`t bear to be without it to send it back to you for modding it ready for the flashrom thingy..
individual Computers: New products, new cooperations : Comment 28 of 41ANN.lu
Posted by CodeSmith on 02-Jun-2003 22:41 GMT
In reply to Comment 16 (Jens Schönfeld):
Hi Jens!

Am I reading this right, that the RR-net cardridge needs a RetroReplay cartridge? OK, from a prospective c-one customer's point of view:

1) will the card-on-a-card thing fit inside an ATX case? (ie how long are the two cartridges stacked on top of each other?)
2) you might want to do another production run of RRs (it says in the ami.ga site that only one 300-item production run was planned), since I'm much more likely to want an Individual Computers ethernet card than a Brown Box PCI ethernet card. It will make my life easier as far as drivers are concerned, and I also trust the manufacturer :) I suspect I'm not alone in this...
3) does the RR-net cardtridge support DMA?

Thanks :)
individual Computers: New products, new cooperations : Comment 29 of 41ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 03-Jun-2003 04:14 GMT
The RR-Net looks great, but why not make something similar for the A1200 clockport? I find it rather weird that no one have made an ethernet adapter for the clockport. There is one USB-adapter for the clockport, but I seem to be unable to locate any ethernet drivers for the Poseidon USB stack used by it.

And while we are at it, would the RetroReplay be able to handle a clockport USB-adapter? (I know it has a similar connector, but maybe it's not similar enough?)
individual Computers: New products, new cooperations : Comment 30 of 41ANN.lu
Posted by CodeSmith on 03-Jun-2003 05:28 GMT
In reply to Comment 29 (Anonymous):
I don't think a C64 has enough horsepower to handle USB. IIRC the A1200 clockport USB card (subway?) needs a 68030 accelerator (there aren't any IRQ lines exposed to the clock port, so it's all polled). You'd need some l337 c0d1n5 5k1llz to get a 1MHz 6502 to work as fast as an '030 :)
individual Computers: New products, new cooperations : Comment 31 of 41ANN.lu
Posted by Chris Hodges on 03-Jun-2003 06:06 GMT
In reply to Comment 30 (CodeSmith):
The clockport DOES have an interrupt line (int6) and the subway is completely interrupt driven.
individual Computers: New products, new cooperations : Comment 32 of 41ANN.lu
Posted by Jens Schönfeld on 03-Jun-2003 06:31 GMT
In reply to Comment 28 (CodeSmith):
RR-Net does not need the Retro Replay on a C-One. It uses a clock-port, and that's already available on the C-One board. However, you'll have to tinker a little with the cable. Check these pictures: (download, dont bookmark, will be removed!):

www.c64upgrade.de/rr-net.jpg
www.c64upgrade.de/rr-net2.jpg


Jens Schönfeld
individual Computers: New products, new cooperations : Comment 33 of 41ANN.lu
Posted by Jens Schönfeld on 03-Jun-2003 06:33 GMT
In reply to Comment 29 (Anonymous):
In theory, you could use RR-Net on the A1200, but it does not fit mechanically, and there are no drivers. Plus, it's an 8-bit wide chip, so it would eat up lots of CPU horsepower on the Amiga. PCMCIA networking cards are about the same price, drivers are free, and they're faster. Why develop something that's already there?

Jens Schönfeld
individual Computers: New products, new cooperations : Comment 34 of 41ANN.lu
Posted by Jens Schönfeld on 03-Jun-2003 06:36 GMT
In reply to Comment 31 (Chris Hodges):
I want to add that the IRQ line of the Retro Replay clockport is connected to the NMI line of the CPU - highest priority to handle the interrupts of the Silversurfer at top speed.

The netowrking card does NOT use interrupts - another reason not to use it on the Amiga.

Jens Schönfeld
individual Computers: New products, new cooperations : Comment 35 of 41ANN.lu
Posted by cv643d on 03-Jun-2003 08:53 GMT
In reply to Comment 34 (Jens Schönfeld):
But a clockport nic for Amiga would be so neat :)
individual Computers: New products, new cooperations : Comment 36 of 41ANN.lu
Posted by CodeSmith on 03-Jun-2003 16:14 GMT
In reply to Comment 31 (Chris Hodges):
Looks like I was misinformed then. Thanks for the update!

BTW, why does the subway need an '030 then? I thought it was because of the polling...
individual Computers: New products, new cooperations : Comment 37 of 41ANN.lu
Posted by CodeSmith on 03-Jun-2003 16:26 GMT
In reply to Comment 34 (Jens Schönfeld):
Hi Jens!

Thanks for the info!

BTW, by "tinkering with the cable", do you mean that the ethernet cable would need to go into the atx case? One way to "fix" that would be to add a PCI-style metal flange (so the RR-net ends up looking like a little PCI card) and a little ribbon cable to go from the card to the c-one's clockport plug.

You said that the ethernet card does not generate interrupts. How does one read data from the network then? I doubt you need to constantly poll for bits, a c64 could not possibly keep up with even 10Mbps. Does it use DMA?
individual Computers: New products, new cooperations : Comment 38 of 41ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 04-Jun-2003 03:29 GMT
AFAIK, you need to poll the C64 network card. You don't need to be able to keep up with the 10MBit, you just read as fast as you can, and the sender will deliver packages at the speed at which the receiver can accept them. The actual network hardware will need buffer some data ofcourse.

I assumed this would be the case for USB hardware as well, which is why I couldn't find a good reason why USB shouldn't work with a C64 as well.
individual Computers: New products, new cooperations : Comment 39 of 41ANN.lu
Posted by CodeSmith on 04-Jun-2003 04:42 GMT
In reply to Comment 38 (Anonymous):
IIRC ethernet doesn't work that way at all - all machines in the network listen to the data being transmitted (that's why you can packet-sniff an ethernet network), so there is no way for the sender to know directly if the packet was received by the intended recipient or not; you'd need the intended recipient to acknowledge. The only way for this to happen would be for the c64 to transmit an acknowledge packet, at the speed of molasses in January. That just seems wrong. I think that what probably happens is that the rr-net has a frame buffer, the c64 reads from and writes to this in chunks of 1500 bytes. That way, the c64 would seem to the rest of the network to be a normal but heavily loaded workstation (frames are transmitted at the proper speed, you just get very few frames per second). An ethernet network that has a mixture of c64s and regular PCs would have to be properly tuned, else most of the traffic is going to be retry packets being sent by the PCs, who expect the c64s to reply fairly quickly.
individual Computers: New products, new cooperations : Comment 40 of 41ANN.lu
Posted by Michael Böhmer on 04-Jun-2003 04:57 GMT
In reply to Comment 36 (CodeSmith):
Hi CodeSmith,

> BTW, why does the subway need an '030 then? I thought it was because of the
> polling...

You're wrong here. The SUBWAY is like all other USB cards from E3B completely interrupt driven (there is INT6 at the clockport). No polling.

It will work with an '020 at all, but for convenience a '030 is requested.
The USB protocol causes some overhead, and this has to be handled, so a '030 is minimum requirement.

Besides, FastRAM is needed, so your Amiga 1200 will have at least a memory expansion, and one of the cheapest ways to do this is to use a 1230 or equivalent with PS/2-RAM.
I don't think many "naked" A1200s are out there today.

Hope this answers your question.
Michael Böhmer
Fa. E3B
individual Computers: New products, new cooperations : Comment 41 of 41ANN.lu
Posted by CodeSmith on 04-Jun-2003 05:41 GMT
In reply to Comment 40 (Michael Böhmer):
Hi, thanks for the info. Maybe I should've said "the alleged polling", since it was only a theory :)

You're right - there can't be too many unexpanded A1200s out there. My particular one (a CBM A1200, bought in 1993) has an Apollo 030 accelerator with 32MB, and was going to get a PPC, cd-rom and lots more ram (all inside a tower case), but then the AmigaOne got announced so I decided to wait instead. This was the "original" A1, not the current "A1.5", so we're talking a while here :)

Boy, owning an amiga does teach one patience... I wonder if the Tibetans are getting back at us for all those "guru meditation" jokes ;)
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