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From: james@uw-atm.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.micro.amiga
Subject: KickStart disks vs. ROM kernel
Message-ID: <18@uw-atm.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 3-Jun-86 14:09:51 EDT
Article-I.D.: uw-atm.18
Posted: Tue Jun  3 14:09:51 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 7-Jun-86 00:51:01 EDT
Organization: Dept. of Atmospheric Sciences, U. of Washington
Lines: 23
Keywords: KickStart ROM


  There has been some debate about whether the kernel should remain on the
current KickStart disk, or be placed in ROM (as the name ROM Kernel implies).

  I would like to suggest a different solution: EEPROMs (Electrically
Erasable, Programmable Read Only Memory).  These would have the advantage of
high speed start (no more waiting for those blasted KickStart disks to be
read), along with the flexibility to make updates.

  If C-A had a new release, they would ship a disk which contained a program
which changed the EEPROMs. To protect against accident change (or worms in
posted code), there could be an electrically resetable switch on the back of
the machine which enabled erasing and writing of the EEPROM.  After you
started the updating program, you would be prompted to press the button, and
when the program was done, it would reset the switch.

  I am not sure of the cost of such system, and clearly it wouldn't do me much
good with my current machine, but on future machines it could be quite an
improvement.

  If you have any thoughts or improvements, lets hear from you.

-- James M Synge      UUCP: uw-beaver!uw-june!james