User avatar
halfbrite

Posted Fri Jul 03, 2020 2:42 pm

Does anyone have a good resource on how to do this?

I see plenty of all you have to do is extract using tool x the driver from rom 3.1 then take the driver, add to new rom to build and use tool z. Some talk about then hex editing the file? I am confused why, I assume has something to do with start locations for booting. But wouldn't the tool to merge the driver do this?

I also see talk about only being able to do with with an exact version of 1.3.

I assume it has more to do with my lack of knowledge of how Amiga Kickstart ROMs are laid out, I assume it is just typical memory space with code executed from a known address.

Are there a list of known MD5sums?

I would like to do this for my A500, then eventually for the A1000.

Then burn, and bob's your uncle, oh don't forget to byteswap!

I am looking to make a 1.3 kickstart with bootable HD for a wicher 500 series board.

The problem is I have never used any of these tools, and not sure about options to use with them. I am a linux guy so pretty handy with the CLI and burn ROMs for my other retro gear no issues, so just looking for how to extract, then build the new rom.

Thanks all!

User avatar
McTrinsic

Posted Fri Jul 03, 2020 10:41 pm

Well basically it IS that simple.

See here.

I did something like this years ago. Was too simple to bother to write a how-to.

What I did was change the exec and add a new driver. Was a 3.1 ROM, though.

You can check if the ROM is working by softkicking it or using it in WinUAE prior to burning it.

User avatar
halfbrite

Posted Sat Jul 04, 2020 5:08 pm

Thanks, this does help a lot!

User avatar
EzdineG
Springfield, MO

Posted Sat Jul 04, 2020 5:32 pm

Our good friend Thomas has detailed this pretty well here.

Note that there is currently no known way to get 1.3 working with large hard disk partitions using the kick13scsipatch/PFS3 method without a constant guru.

This bug was explained by Toni Wilen in a post that escapes me at the moment.
[edit] explained here with possible workaround in thread if this affects you
Last edited by EzdineG on Mon Jul 06, 2020 11:02 am, edited 2 times in total.

User avatar
McTrinsic

Posted Sun Jul 05, 2020 4:22 am

Thanks a lot for pointing that out, @EdzineG.

This is specifically relevant for a board that emulates the implementation of the scsi.device by Commodore in the A600 and A1200.

Which is what the Whicher uses.

Other cards provide different devices.

User avatar
EzdineG
Springfield, MO

Posted Sun Jul 05, 2020 5:07 am

McTrinsic wrote:
Sun Jul 05, 2020 4:22 am
This is specifically relevant for a board that emulates the implementation of the scsi.device by Commodore in the A600 and A1200.
Correct! The missing context here is that just having the scsi.device driver embedded in 1.3 will support the Gayle emulated IDE, but the Amiga won’t boot from it without the additional modifications in the link above.

This was definitely the case with the Terriblefire accelerators.

User avatar
rpiguy9907

Posted Mon Jul 06, 2020 6:01 am

After doing some research over the last three weeks, I purchased an accelerator for the Amiga 500 that claims to be able to boot to large IDE partitions from AmigaDOS 1.3.

HC533 33MHZ 8MB RAM IDE Turbo Board

The "Oktapussy" and "Oktagon" are boot ROMs and one enables support for IDE and large partitions.

The only downside of this accelerator is that there is no disable mode for the extra ram or the acceleration, so whatever you put it in will be mostly for WHDLOAD and not booting older games, although the list of games that don't work with fast ram is quite small.

It isn't too much of a stretch, this is how early VGA cards and early IDE controllers added support and how modern XT-IDE flash cards work today. Remember seeing old PCs boot with "VGA BIOS?"

I will report on whether this works well when I get around installing it :-)

User avatar
intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Mon Jul 06, 2020 11:19 am

The other "downside" of this card:
Due to the nature of the board's in-68K socket AutoConfig solution, do not expect to operate any units off the A500 or A1000 86-pin expansion slot which provides AutoConfig to expansion units.
So if you're using a HDD off the expansion port - if I'm reading this correctly - you'd need to find a different HDD solution. Of course, it offers IDE, so that's probably a moot point.

User avatar
McTrinsic

Posted Mon Jul 06, 2020 12:41 pm

You can most probably use one of the cheap IDE->CF adapters. Those again can be used with a CF->SD and, subsequently, an SD->uSD adapter.

Sounds weites but probably will work :).

User avatar
rpiguy9907

Posted Mon Jul 06, 2020 3:59 pm

intric8 wrote:
Mon Jul 06, 2020 11:19 am
The other "downside" of this card:
Due to the nature of the board's in-68K socket AutoConfig solution, do not expect to operate any units off the A500 or A1000 86-pin expansion slot which provides AutoConfig to expansion units.
So if you're using a HDD off the expansion port - if I'm reading this correctly - you'd need to find a different HDD solution. Of course, it offers IDE, so that's probably a moot point.
Yes since it maxes out ram with 8MB already, has HD controller built in, and an accelerator I can’t imagine what I would hang off the side expansion. If I used SCSI I wouldn’t need this to boot from IDE/CF :-)





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