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From: d88ricwe@odalix.ida.liu.se (Rickard Westman)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.misc
Subject: Re: KS 2.0 for A1000 (was: Three (dumb) questions)
Message-ID: <1991Mar22.170907.26385@ida.liu.se>
Date: 22 Mar 91 17:09:07 GMT
References: <11280@jarthur.Claremont.EDU> <1991Mar20.174954.21646@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu> <4208@bnr-rsc.UUCP>
Sender: news@ida.liu.se (News Subsystem)
Organization: CIS Dept, Univ of Linkoping, Sweden
Lines: 39

>My dealer told me :) that A1000 users will *not* be able to use WB 2.0.
>Is this likely:
> 
>a. Wrong

Yes, it's wrong.  It is possible to use 2.0 with A1000 *now*, if you 
have at least 512K RAM at $200000 and have the disk based version of
KS 2.0 distributed to developers.  (I am not an official developer,
so I don't have it.)

If users will be able to run 2.0 in a way supported by Commodore is
another question.  Commodore *could* provide 2.0 to A1000 owners if
they wanted to.  This may not be the case, even though I hope they
will.

>b. Because Kickstart 2.x will be distributed only on ROMs.

Commodore will probably prefer users running 2.0 from ROM.

>c. Because the Kickstart daugtherboard doesn't have enough DRAM to hold
>   the larger Kickstart 2.x

This is true.  Only one half of Kickstart 2.0 would fit in the
daughterboard RAM.  Commodore could provide a Kickstart disk which
loads half the ROM image in WOM and half in RAM @ $200000.  Actually,
the first half would be loaded into WOM automatically.  When the boot
ROM code jumps into the WOM, it could check the checksum of the other
half.  If it was wrong it could be because the RAM image was corrupted
or never loaded.  In either case, the second half would be loaded from
disk.  Of course, expansion.library and trackdisk.device would have to
be located in the $FC0000 part for this to work.

I think this would be a good idea, but chances are Commodore wouldn't
think of it as worthwhile.  In that case I hope they will be kind
enough to make it possible for someone else to provide such a disk, by
locating the needed libraries/devices, as well as any unused space in
the $FC0000 part.
--
Rickard Westman, University of Linkoping, Sweden