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Information to Amikitpage  1 2 3 4 5 

Vojin Vidanovic
(Needs Verification)
Posts 1916/ 1
15 Dec 2020 20:47


Pitteloud Stephane wrote:

  Being able to boot a FAT partition is not a bug but a feature, and therfore don't have  have to be "fixed"
 

 
  True, but as AmiKit SD Card is not a FAT partion, its not relevant.
 
  Relevant is that V4 cannot boot card that in could in past, rendering current AmiKit card unusable, as well as demanding separate branch just because of that (in all other aspects current Amikit works on V4).
 
  And I ll stop there, as we are not any closer to solution, and end result is that AmiKit is no longer sold for V4.

Gunnar von Boehn wrote:

  Fact is, fixing Amikit partitions would have taken only minutes.
  We did spend here 100 times more time to talk about it than fixing the partitions would have taken.

Fact is once cards are done you cant udno them, as well as that this means V4 would need separate cards partitioned in future, which is artificially imposed segregation. Users can do harder fix by creating FAT partition and unpacking LZX AmiKit to it even today, but out of box fun is spoiled.


Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6207
15 Dec 2020 20:52


Vojin Vidanovic wrote:

Pitteloud Stephane wrote:

    Being able to boot a FAT partition is not a bug but a feature, and therfore don't have  have to be "fixed"
 

 
  True, but as AmiKit SD Card is not a FAT partion, its not relevant.
 
  Relevant is that V4 cannot boot card that in could in past,

I think you misunderstand here a lot.
The problem of Amikit is they way it did its FAT partition.



Vojin Vidanovic
(Needs Verification)
Posts 1916/ 1
15 Dec 2020 20:54


Gunnar von Boehn wrote:

  I think you misunderstand here a lot.
  The problem of Amikit is they way it did its FAT partition.

I understand V2 with its ROM can boot those "kinky" FAT partitions and V4 cannot since AROS ROM. Is that correct understanding?


Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6207
15 Dec 2020 21:01


Vojin Vidanovic wrote:

 
Gunnar von Boehn wrote:

    I think you misunderstand here a lot.
    The problem of Amikit is they way it did its FAT partition.
 

 
  I understand V2 with its ROM can boot those "kinky" FAT partitions and V4 cannot since AROS ROM. Is that correct understanding?
 

I would describe it as the other way around.
 
The old AMIGA OS Kick can simply not "see" FAT partitions.
Therefore old Amiga OS Kick will just ignore what it not sees.
The old kick will not care if such partition are there,
or whether they are correct or have error
of whether they have have bootable flags or not.
The old kick will simply ignore all this.
 
But AROS on the other hand is more advanced.
AROS can see these partitions.
And Aros can see them already from Kickstart.
As AROS does not only see them, Aros even allows you to boot from them.
As AROS can boot from them it will check if they have bootable flags and care if they are correct.
 
Its not the that V4 can do less.
The V4 can do more.
It can boot from SDcard, it can boot from FAT partitions.
It can do more, for example boot from these partitions
but also requires that the partitions are correctly setup.



Vojin Vidanovic
(Needs Verification)
Posts 1916/ 1
15 Dec 2020 21:10


Overall, booting FAT32 partition out of KS is advancement, long time needed, eliminating CrossDOS and other handlers, as well as enabling booting from fAT is important for Atari and MacOS Classic. Nice one.

But, how can it be improved to use AmiKit as it is now? I understand Jan pressed a lot of cards and cannot change them as currently sold without lost income.


Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6207
15 Dec 2020 21:19


Vojin Vidanovic wrote:

  I understand Jan pressed a lot of cards and cannot change them as currently sold without lost income.
 

 

What makes you think this?
 
Lets be honest here this partition fix could have been done long ago and is task of some minutes and then all new cards would have no problem.

And updating an old CF with a new image only needs plug CF in writer and a few click with the mouse. This "service" of some minute per V4 users would have been a lot less work than the time to fill out the address label for the parcel.

 


Vojin Vidanovic
(Needs Verification)
Posts 1916/ 1
15 Dec 2020 21:34


Gunnar von Boehn wrote:

 
  What makes you think this?

Scale of economy. He pressed cards once for both v2 and v4 and does nit have a separate v4 edition.

New feature is great,I imagine booting AmigaOS or ApolloOS from FAT32 partition is finally possible - but is bad if it cant do something v2 could.

Yes, I understand better communication in past could make this probem non existing, but sadly, we are beyond that point.

So, either ROM will be fixed to be able to boot that too in next release, or we will have to wait until current AmiKit cards batch is sold to v2 users and new one in more V4 compatible format is pressed. That seems to be reality of situation.


Pitteloud Stephane
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 69
15 Dec 2020 21:40


Vojin Vidanovic wrote:

  But, how can it be improved to use AmiKit as it is now? I understand Jan pressed a lot of cards and cannot change them as currently sold without lost income.

Amikit used a NON LEGACY way to boot on V4, a way that only existed on V4, while other distributions like Coffin or ApolloOS can start correctly (I remind you that Coffin is based on an Amiga OS 3.x, it's therefore the proof that compatibility is there). Therefore, it's fun to cry out for incompatibility :-)

I am asking you the following question: what costs more money, change the partition scheme and reflash some CF cards, as well as make available to existing customers a password protected archive, or ask Team Apollo to spend the next few weeks modifying the Aros kickstart to remove a feature for the sole purpose of allowing Amikit to start as is?

Even worse: let's imagine that this modification prevents ApolloOS from booting by bad luck. There, it will be the moment to ask the question "how can we compensate for the time lost by the members of the team who have made every effort to prepare the cards which are delivered with the V4", no?

At the same time, I have never seen Linux developers summon a manufacturer to correct their boot sequence on a new machine whose specifications were made public because the cds had already been pressed.




Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6207
15 Dec 2020 21:40


Vojin Vidanovic wrote:

  So, either ROM will be fixed to be able to boot that too in next release, or we will have to wait until current AmiKit cards batch is sold to v2 users and new one in more V4 compatible format is pressed. That seems to be reality of situation.
 

 
I agree.
 
Lets be honest, CF are not "pressed".
CFs are rewriteable. And rewriting a CF need 3 clicks with mouse.

If his V4 customer are not worth him 3 mouse clicks, then I think he should rather not sell them any CFs - which not work.
 
I think if a user pays $80 for a CF then the user should get a working CF.
If 3 mouse clicks are to much (I understood this) then please not sell nonworking card to people.
 


Otto PS
(Needs Verification)
Posts 4/ 1
15 Dec 2020 21:56


Pitteloud Stephane wrote:

Vojin Vidanovic wrote:

 
   
    Is it that hard to fix the ROM, knowing it roots as AmigaROS replacement, it was always a bit incompatible?
   
   
 

  Being able to boot a FAT partition is not a bug but a feature, and therfore don't have  have to be "fixed"
 
 
 

From wikipedia: Some user-reported defects are viewed by developers as working as expected, leading to the catchphrase "it's not a bug, it's a feature" (INABIAF) and its variations.

You make my day dude!



Pitteloud Stephane
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 69
15 Dec 2020 22:18


Otto PS wrote:

  From wikipedia: Some user-reported defects are viewed by developers as working as expected, leading to the catchphrase "it's not a bug, it's a feature" (INABIAF) and its variations.
 
  You make my day dude!
 


So, for you, is it a bug to have the possibility of booting from a FAT partition while the Amiga OS rom cannot? it's you who makes my day "dude"

Aros can boot a FAT partition. There is a FAT partition on Amikit, used to exchange datas with a PC or a Mac (and this is a good idea, why not). But the way this FAT partition is present on Amikit CF prevent booting correctly with the Aros ROM, because Aros ROM can see those FAT partition, where AmigaOS rom can't see them at all.




Smartroad 78

Posts 116
15 Dec 2020 23:44


What is the actual issue? Why is the FAT partition causing issues? How do we fix it?

This is the problem with Amiga Land, when there is an issue it seems that people tend towards mud flinging rather than just working the problem.

If the issue is known, and there is already a fix for it, why not make that public so those who are affected by the issue might have some semblance of hope to fix it.

All I have read in this thread is people saying it is someone else's problem to fix. Maybe so, but it is obviously not getting us anywhere fast (or at all). So if we know WHY the issue is happening and HOW to fix it, just publish details of the fix.

If the issue is with AmiKit having problems with the AROS ROM then the Apollo team could create a patch that the Amikit team could apply to make it work, seeing as they seem to know where the problem is. And from what I have read it appears to be a simple fix. And if the Aminet team is not willing/able to apply it, then package it up so the end user could apply it themselves.

For the love of sanity it is like being back teaching at school when the students are blaming each other when the pot of paint got spilt rather than working together and just cleaning the damn mess up so we can just go home!


Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6207
16 Dec 2020 04:08


smartroad 78 wrote:

And if the Aminet team is not willing/able to apply it,

   
Honestly there is no black magic to fixing this.
Its only about where to click when creating the disk partition.
There is no skill needed to fix it. You just need to want to.     

smartroad 78 wrote:

then package it up so the end user could apply it themselves.

     

The fix is only clicking the right attribute/option when first partitioning the CF. I'm not sure that doing a "patch" later on makes much sense.
     
In my opinion the problem have mostly those Amiga fans which are not very familiar with some computer aspects. People which are unsure even how to flash a CF themselves. These people that pay $80 to get a ready to use CF.
     
The people which have enough computer experience, they already use Willem Bootloader which works great, they use Coffin which works perfectly, and they know how to work around this.
     
In think the people that suffer are those which not know how to apply format a disk. If someone wants to help them then the only solution is selling fixed pre-installed CF, which are ready to use.

Or did you mean we should ship working Amikit copies to people?


Eric Gus

Posts 477
16 Dec 2020 04:29


smartroad 78 wrote:

What is the actual issue? Why is the FAT partition causing issues? How do we fix it?
 
  This is the problem with Amiga Land, when there is an issue it seems that people tend towards mud flinging rather than just working the problem.
 
  If the issue is known, and there is already a fix for it, why not make that public so those who are affected by the issue might have some semblance of hope to fix it.
 
  All I have read in this thread is people saying it is someone else's problem to fix. Maybe so, but it is obviously not getting us anywhere fast (or at all). So if we know WHY the issue is happening and HOW to fix it, just publish details of the fix.
 
  If the issue is with AmiKit having problems with the AROS ROM then the Apollo team could create a patch that the Amikit team could apply to make it work, seeing as they seem to know where the problem is. And from what I have read it appears to be a simple fix. And if the Aminet team is not willing/able to apply it, then package it up so the end user could apply it themselves.
 
  For the love of sanity it is like being back teaching at school when the students are blaming each other when the pot of paint got spilt rather than working together and just cleaning the damn mess up so we can just go home!

I fully agree.. let move past the "blame" and lets just get to the crux of the issue and get a fix out there..

at this point its kind moot where the issue lies ... the paint has been split .. lets all try to clean it up now .. and sort out the details later.


Olaf Schoenweiss

Posts 690
16 Dec 2020 09:51


@Vojin Vidanovic

I do not understand why you take the side here

Jan knew that it not works on V4 but he could still sell it for V2 so he should made clear to anyone that it only works with 3.1 roms equipped hardware, not with aros roms. Then it would be obvious to anyone buying it what to expect. And regarding changing roms, it was obvious for a long time (at least since end of 2019) that V4 will be delivered with aros roms. Anything that promises to work on V4 has to comply to that. Yes aros roms certainly are not (yet) fully 3.1 compatible and like in any software there still are shortcomings or bugs but in this case Jan expects for his not very cheap distribution that the aros roms are downgraded. That is a little like developing windows software and if it not works blaming microsoft for it and asking microsoft to adapt windows to the software.


Olaf Schoenweiss

Posts 690
16 Dec 2020 09:57


I do not believe that the apollo team has the time and is motivated to create a fix to change a feature that is fully working. It is the responsibility of the person selling products to make it working as promised. Use of aros roms is not new or surprising. If I realize something is not working on a certain configuration I cannot sell it there. In this case V4 will not be changed just for a certain commercial package. Jan not wants to change it and the apollo team is not interested to change the rom. That is OK. For me that is not the problem but selling it to V4 owners knowing it will not work. It should always be obvious when it works and that it for working needs original amiga roms, meaning V2 or one of the few V4 delivered with original roms.
 
  The problem are the cards with fixed partitions. That of course limits the market for it but that has everyone to decide for himself.

And changing behavior of roms is not that easy, whoever asks for that can look at the source codes himself. Expecially in this case where it is not really a bug but a sophisticated feature and it can be solved by the commercial entity.


James Husted
(Needs Verification)
Posts 81/ 3
16 Dec 2020 11:35


So it is simple - The person selling Amikit just needs to spend a little time rewriting the CF cards with the corrected img as said by Gunnar. Why is this a problem? If he wants to keep selling to V4 users then it is the way forward. In my personal opinion you should not be selling it in the first place but that is beyond the scope of this topic.


Pitteloud Stephane
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 69
16 Dec 2020 15:57


Thanks Olaf, this is exactly that.


Gerardo G.

Posts 54
16 Dec 2020 18:22


Apollo Team was clear about V4 + AROS combination from beginning. It was and it is the best and only way to avoid any legal mess regarding AmigaOS.

So it is clear that Amikit site should not be listing V4 as compatible, suggesting V4 users to upgrade to AmigaOS ROM or redirecting them to Apollo Team's support to get that compatibility.


Vojin Vidanovic
(Needs Verification)
Posts 1916/ 1
16 Dec 2020 19:03


Gerardo González-Trejo wrote:

  So it is clear that Amikit site should not be listing V4 as compatible, suggesting V4 users to upgrade to AmigaOS ROM or redirecting them to Apollo Team's support to get that compatibility.

Since this announcement, it no longer does.


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