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| Native Successor of OS3.9? | page 1 2
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Thomas Richter
Germany
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Posts 1425
18 Dec 2009 13:34
| Matt Hey wrote:
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@Thomas Richter
You should release your updated "modules". There are still people interested in the Amiga Classic regardless of Natami. I can't believe the Natami team doesn't jump at your kind offer. Software writing, debugging and testing is the slow part of creating a new system. Having usable source code for 2 OS components (layers and audio) that need updating for the new hardware is like mana from heaven.
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The problem is the legal situation, really. It is not officially part of the 3.9 distribution, nor is it my own genuine work, but derived from the official sources. I can certainly update 3.9 components by providing patches to the official binary distribution, but layers wasn't one of them. The question is how to make this possible so it is legally waterproof. Not to provide it or distribute it. Matt Hey wrote:
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One specific question. What image formats does your layers.library support (chunky)?
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(-: Layers works on top of gfx, thus it doesn't matter in principle. However, where the old 3.1 layers used tricks like double-xor to exchange graphics and buffer, the V45 uses a direct blitting approach. Double xor is fine on the native blitter, but troublesome on chunky. V45 is optimized for chunky instead. Problem is that several third-party software patches on top of layers to avoid similar problems, though sometimes in a buggy way. P96 newlayers.library was trying to avoid these blitting problems and hence speeding up the operation, but introduced errors in cliprect and gimmezerozero windows, and I don't know what Cgfx did.
For P96, all you need to do is to delete newlayers.library and it works perfectly. For CGfx, I afraid, I have no easy solution, and no clear picture. Matt Hey wrote:
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@Natami Team
Wake up! What software plans are being made besides a few games that bang the hardware? The Amiga was always about having an efficient OS and not having to bang the hardware. Do you have a plan for the OS? Is there a group identifying and assembling possible software solutions?
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That is the problem - the operating system. Someone *need* to obtain licenses of some form. Getting the sources is not and has never been the problem. Really. So long,
Thomas
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Louis Dias
USA
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Posts 217
18 Dec 2009 13:48
| Thomas, Good to see you posting again.
Any updates on the hardware? Is it functionally sound? Also, I don't understand the legal issue... When I installed 3.1 on my CD32, I frequently installed updated modules that wew not from Commodore. What is stopping anyone from releasing a NATAMI compatibility CD that patches 3.x for NATAMI compatibility. This is no different than what WINUAE does to get WINUAE to uses PC hardware natively...in a sense...
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Channel Z
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Posts 227
18 Dec 2009 13:52
| @Louis Dias Welcome to the forum.
Do not confuse Thomas Hirsch with Thomas Richter.
I must admit that it is easy to mix them up when they both are German, intelligent and hardworking and posts on the same forum :)
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Wawa Tk
Germany
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Posts 581
18 Dec 2009 14:35
| @t.richter: i quite realize that said devices and libraries are parts of amiga kicksart and thus not directly accessible.
still it is possible to disassemble kickstart into separate modules using romsplit tool and patch them separately. afterwards you can either assemble the new kickstart file or load the modules separately with blizkick or put them into amiga-boottime-flash-extention of your choice. it isnt rocket science as it is used to phrase here and im sure you are well aware of it.
i must admit im not even aware anymore where i got my patches from, be it romsplit/remus package, amikit or poseidon/liciferin but here is a thread about a page where current versions of unofficial patches are hold:
EXTERNAL LINK just in case it interests you. these must be the ones im currently using.
edit:äh here is a link matthey posted in another thread, i have got my patches from here too i suppose.
EXTERNAL LINK
and just a hott link to current page for quick referrence.
EXTERNAL LINK
edit2: äh thomas, i see now. ive probably forgot that said patches are patches for os3.9, not for the original rom 3.0 or 3.1 modules.
this of course works only for users that own 3.9 package. the question is is this a problem or shoud the patches for a spacific kickstart (say 3.1) be targeted instead (which is probably too much work).
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Andreas G. Szabo
Germany
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Posts 134
18 Dec 2009 14:47
| > This is no different than what WINUAE does to get WINUAE to uses PC hardware natively...in a sense... ...amithlon...
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Louis Dias
USA
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Posts 217
18 Dec 2009 14:50
| Yes, sorry for the mixup. On Amiga.org there is a thread where people burned their own Kickstart ROM with the 3.9 patches which sped up the boot process cosiderably.
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Wawa Tk
Germany
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Posts 581
19 Dec 2009 02:24
| well, if you boot from an patched kick or from patched kick-flash you do not need to reboot to initialize the patches. hence the speedup. my a4k boots under 30s to wb, which is about for an amount of time it waits for drives, as set in ks3.1. an os3.0 machine may boot almost instantly because it doesnt wait for no ide hd to spin up. but if they are present it misses them.
might seem to be a lot of tradeoff given todays specs but reasonable for the mid 90's when it was chosen. i would say 10-15s delay today-
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Matt Hey
USA
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Posts 726
19 Dec 2009 08:12
| Thomas Richter wrote:
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The problem is the legal situation, really. It is not officially part of the 3.9 distribution, nor is it my own genuine work, but derived from the official sources. I can certainly update 3.9 components by providing patches to the official binary distribution, but layers wasn't one of them.
The question is how to make this possible so it is legally waterproof. Not to provide it or distribute it. |
I see your predicament and understand your caution. The fact that you have seen the actual sources could create questions of conflict of interest and theft of intellectual property. The most convenient option for you would be for the Natami team to license AmigaOS 3.9 with the rights to make changes. Something similar to what Amiga Forever did. They would probably be stuck with the name AmigaOS 3.9 as 4.0 is used. Maybe they could license the name Amiga Classic OS or get the rights to rename as Natami OS too. One question is who owns the rights to the AmigaOS now. If it's Hyperion then they might not be open to such a license as they may see it as competition. The Natami should have advantages over PPC hardware in cost and power efficiency. If it could be brought to market cheap enough, it could out sell PPC Amigas. I could see a Natami laptop for under 500 Euros being a hit. Natami would certainly want to license with the correct company as Amiga Inc and Hyperion would probably both take their money but only one (or neither :) could give a valid license. I just hope the Natami team figures out that the hardware that should have been is not quite the same without the operating system that should have been ;).
BTW Your layers.library sounds exactly like what the Natami team needs.
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Matt Hey
USA
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Posts 726
19 Dec 2009 08:47
| @Louis Dias and Wawa Nothing is stopping us from making a patch. We could do spatches of individual AmigaOS components or even a spatch of the whole Amiga kickstart. This is really the backup plan. Here are the 2 options I see... 1) Natami licenses the AmigaOS with rights to make changes
+ Thomas Richter and others can release updated and new modules
+ work can be done from sources (in some cases) saving time
+ installation would be easier and more convenient
+ Natami purchasers would not have to own a ROM and OS
- costs more
- Hyperion team might try and block 2) Natami spatches the AmigaOS
+ cheap
+ less legal issues
- Natami purchasers would have to own a ROM and OS
- more work to disassemble and make changes to modules
- installation would be messy using old AmigaOS components
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Thomas Richter
Germany
| | (MX-Board Owner)
Posts 1425
19 Dec 2009 10:33
| wawa tk wrote:
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@t.richter: i quite realize that said devices and libraries are parts of amiga kicksart and thus not directly accessible.
still it is possible to disassemble kickstart into separate modules using romsplit tool and patch them separately. afterwards you can either assemble the new kickstart file or load the modules separately with blizkick or put them into amiga-boottime-flash-extention of your choice. it isnt rocket science as it is used to phrase here and im sure you are well aware of it.
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I don't see why that changes the legal situation. Again, I *can* provide patches for 3.9 work I did and which was released as of 3.9 because I had the allowance to work said modules and any patches are derived from the work I did under this contract, but I do not see how I can release patches for 3.1 - this is not a technical problem - but a legal one. The contract I got back then simply doesn't cover layers, audio, keymap and keyboard.So long,
Thomas
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