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From: mitsu@well.UUCP (Mitsuharu Hadeishi)
Newsgroups: net.micro.amiga
Subject: Re: Convenient Kickstart
Message-ID: <1253@well.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 10-Jun-86 21:36:18 EDT
Article-I.D.: well.1253
Posted: Tue Jun 10 21:36:18 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 12-Jun-86 00:36:02 EDT
References: <1241@well.UUCP> <1247@well.UUCP>
Reply-To: mitsu@well.UUCP (Mitsuharu Hadeishi)
Organization: Whole Earth Lectronic Link, Sausalito CA
Lines: 29


	In reference to putting Kickstart and Workbench on one disk
and the debate over putting Kickstart in ROM:

	First of all, putting Kickstart on the Workbench disk would
wipe out 256K of space, besides being highly kludgy.  The Kickstart
and DOS formats are very different, and a partitioned disk would
basically ONLY be useful to someone trying to put up a BBS.
The inconvenience of load Kickstart once at power-up is minimal for
most users, and it is virtually impossible to kill Kickstart without
turning the power off (I haven't done it yet, and I am a *developer*.)
Definitely keep the WCS!!!! The cost for future updates and
major overhauls will be MUCHO reduced; for example, you might want to
retrofit old Amigas with new Kickstarts to handle some new software
feature or operating system you might introduct on a newer Amiga;
having Kickstart in WCS also greatly increases the incentive for
improving system performance in future.  In the short term
C-A may not be intending to update ROM, but the future can never tell.
Two years from now some whiz-bang idea might really be helped by
minor changes to Kickstart; you never know.  KEEP KICKSTART IN WCS!!!
It's a good investment.  (Besides, there's always one more bug fix.)
	In any case, there is no minicomputer in the world with
an operating system burned into ROM.  They all boot from hard disk,
or tape backup, and for good reason.  The Amiga is in the class of
computer where having the operating system on disk is almost a
necessity.  One feature I would DEFINITELY like: booting Kickstart
from hard disk!!! If this is possible at all, it should be implemented.
256K off a floppy is significant, but off a hard disk its paltry.
			-Mitsu (mitsu@well.UUCP)