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Mnt Va2000page  1 2 

Cocaaladioxine .

Posts 2
09 Feb 2017 09:14


Hey everyone,

I've been following this nice adventure for quite a long time.
(Natami was our dream back then and the first dev board was not even pictured ^^)
I had an Amiga when I was younger and it left a strong nostalgia!
But enough talking about me.

I've seen this on osnews :

EXTERNAL LINK 
Do you know those guys? Could it be of any interest for the future of the Vampires? Seems like you follow the same goal here?

Anyway, keep up the good work!

Cheers!


Cunn Pole

Posts 29
09 Feb 2017 09:46


EXTERNAL LINK 
If you read the link above you'll see kipper2k/majsta/BigGun are thanked for their help


Nixus Minimax

Posts 416
09 Feb 2017 12:48


"Cooperation" would be too much of a word but there is some friendly communication with Lukas / mntmn on irc. From a more technical perspective the projects may benefit from each other, e.g. the gfx driver for the VA2000 is based on that for the Vampire and, if it gets enhanced beyond the very basic functionality it has now, this would probably be ported back into ours.

I think that the VA2000 and the Vampires are directed at different markets: the VA2000 is very interesting for people who want a more original user experience in a Big Box Amiga, perhaps with some original add-on hardware, the vampire more for people interested in getting the hardware they would have wanted 15 years ago that sadly never was developed because the Amiga (and 68k) was already dead in the water by then. Both are great products in their own way.



Cocaaladioxine .

Posts 2
09 Feb 2017 13:12


Ok, thanks for your answers :)

I did not read the GitHub page !

Anyway, it's awesome to see those nice projects for our beloved amiga. After so many year of vaporwares, it's good to have real working stuff :)

 




Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6207
09 Feb 2017 13:15


I fully agree with Nixus,

Any hardware development for the AMIGA is cool and good.
Being this 68000 CPU cards, or Z2 cards like the mentioned GFXcards.

And yes we have friendly communication and are open to help each other.




M Rickan

Posts 177
10 Feb 2017 07:00


Gunnar von Boehn wrote:

And yes we have friendly communication and are open to help each other.

Any chance that the same sort of dialog might be going on in the background for the software side?

One would think that it would be in the interest of Cloanto to bundle the OS/ROM images with the Vampire and perhaps also look into making updates to address any issues.


Michal Warzecha

Posts 209
10 Feb 2017 07:39


Good idea. Very good. But is it possible? Best thing will be possibility making updates.If they have rights to make any kickstart modyficatons- it could be great. Is there any size limit for the ROM in Vampire?


Gregthe Canuck

Posts 274
10 Feb 2017 08:28


From recent history the only actual 3.1 ROM code modifications are being done by Hyperion.

Here is their most recent update: EXTERNAL LINK 
I keep hoping Hyperion does more work on 3.1 to reduce the number of patches required but it's mostly silence so far.




Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6207
10 Feb 2017 08:49


Michal Warzecha wrote:

Is there any size limit for the ROM in Vampire?

Vampire supports 1 MB ROMS.

Using VampireTool you can maprom Romfiles.
E.g. also boot with EMUTOS


Michal Warzecha

Posts 209
10 Feb 2017 09:09


gregthe canuck wrote:

  From recent history the only actual 3.1 ROM code modifications are being done by Hyperion.
 
  Here is their most recent update: EXTERNAL LINK   
  I keep hoping Hyperion does more work on 3.1 to reduce the number of patches required but it's mostly silence so far.
 
 
 

 
  Amazing update. "We change nothing, but enjoy new logo and brighter background"...
  I think some things could be changed especially for Vampire based Amigas. Probably if someone could give permission to rebuild kickstart to make it better for Vampire users (remove known errors, add some file system etc etc), they still can sell it to us. I can pay for better kickstart for my own Vampire. Patching already patched patches is not a way, kickstart should be rebuilded I think.

1MB is not too much place for big updates, but should be enough if something not rally needed can be removed.


Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6207
10 Feb 2017 11:08


Michal Warzecha wrote:

1MB is not too much place for big updates, but should be enough if something not rally needed can be removed.

Please do not look at this like a Windows 10 install. ;-)

AMIGA OS 3.1 has a size of 512 KB.
If you add on top the SCSI and the 64bit filesystems fix.
Then this needs maybe another 20 KB.

This means in a 1MB ROM you still have nearly 500 KB free!

If you now look how much AMIGA OS development was done in that last 10 years - and take this is level.

Then the 500 KB should last for several thousand years to come ;-)




Michal Warzecha

Posts 209
10 Feb 2017 12:58


Gunnar von Boehn wrote:

  Then the 500 KB should last for several thousand years to come ;-)
 
 

Optimistic :)

But, do You think Kickasrt need to be changed? What can be done inside ROM? In my opinion FFS could be changed to something like PFS3 as native file system. Anything else?


Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6207
10 Feb 2017 13:39


Michal Warzecha wrote:

But, do You think Kickasrt need to be changed? What can be done inside ROM? In my opinion FFS could be changed to something like PFS3 as native file system. Anything else?

Hmmm

I would enhance SCSI device to support Bigger Blockzise.
Advantage of this would be
* avoid write amplify = increase live-time of flash devices (SD/SSD/CF)
* improve speed

I would also add DMA support for A600/A1200/A4000-IDE and for SAGA-IDE.
With DMA support you will get good IDE speed for low CPU usage.

Also the OS can be enhanced to provide a clean way for applications to allocate SAGA specific resources. E.g like the DMA channels for Network etc.




Michal Warzecha

Posts 209
10 Feb 2017 16:58


Gunnar von Boehn wrote:

 
  Hmmm
 
  I would enhance SCSI device to support Bigger Blockzise.
  Advantage of this would be
  * avoid write amplify = increase live-time of flash devices (SD/SSD/CF)
  * improve speed
 
  I would also add DMA support for A600/A1200/A4000-IDE and for SAGA-IDE.
  With DMA support you will get good IDE speed for low CPU usage.
 
 
 
  Also the OS can be enhanced to provide a clean way for applications to allocate SAGA specific resources. E.g like the DMA channels for Network etc.
 

Probably good idea, but kickstart should be prepared to be possible use Amiga with and without Vampire in case of Vampire damage (I know it's almost impossible, but s#&t happend sometime :D) And Cloanto (or other company who will let work on kickstart source code) should have possibility to sell improved kickstart to ppl without Vampire. Othervise I doubt they share source code and let do anything with it.


Michal Warzecha

Posts 209
10 Feb 2017 17:01


Gunnar von Boehn wrote:

  I would also add DMA support for A600/A1200/A4000-IDE and for SAGA-IDE.
  With DMA support you will get good IDE speed for low CPU usage.
 
 
 
  Also the OS can be enhanced to provide a clean way for applications to allocate SAGA specific resources. E.g like the DMA channels for Network etc.
 
 

So, DMA is only matter of software? Or Vampire must be used to add this feature to Amiga IDE?


Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6207
10 Feb 2017 17:55


Michal Warzecha wrote:

And Cloanto (or other company who will let work on kickstart source code)

Well whether there are companies having interest to develop AMIGA OS -  is maybe a question of speculative nature.
I do not like to speculate about motivation or skill or lack of both of others here.

We have ideas to improve AMIGA OS.
We see a need to do this.
And we will do this.


Gunnar von Boehn
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 6207
10 Feb 2017 18:09


Michal Warzecha wrote:

So, DMA is only matter of software? Or Vampire must be used to add this feature to Amiga IDE?

The original AMIGA chipset had DMA for Floppy.
But _NOT_ for IDE.

Vampire can magically re-add such DMA to the AMIGA.

Of course to use it a handfull instruction in Kick need be added.



Michal Warzecha

Posts 209
10 Feb 2017 19:39


Cool. I heard rumors about DMA in Amigas, but never have time (or mativation mayby) to check this.
Back to kick rights and it's owners- of course if We ask them to release source code for free because We're super, best and want it- they will newer even look at us. But they have rights to use it and sell kickstarts. I think We (or You, to be precise :D )should ask them to release source for develop to Apollo team, and You can prepare it for Amiga and especially Vampire users. And, of course still they will sell licence, but community get legal and improved kickstart, mayby team will earn some money on it and mayby Cloanto/Whoever will cooperate with team in future in some fields.
Hope You'll not become angry because this post, but in my opinion it could work :D


M Rickan

Posts 177
11 Feb 2017 04:43


Gunnar von Boehn wrote:

  I do not like to speculate about motivation or skill or lack of both of others here.
 
  We have ideas to improve AMIGA OS.
  We see a need to do this.
  And we will do this.

Understandable... but has there been any dialog to eliminate speculation and determine if there are any real opportunities to cooperate?

Mike Battilana of Cloanto recently made overtures in this regard during his talk at Amiga Ireland.


M Rickan

Posts 177
11 Feb 2017 04:53


Michal Warzecha wrote:

Good idea. Very good. But is it possible? Best thing will be possibility making updates.If they have rights to make any kickstart modyficatons- it could be great.

It really comes down to opening up the lines of communication and determining if possibilities exist.

Every Vampire sold potentially results in additional OS licenses.

Every improvement to the OS leads to enhanced Vampire capabilities.

Win win.


posts 32page  1 2