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From: grr@cbmvax.UUCP (George Robbins)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: The Next Generation
Message-ID: <2814@cbmvax.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 18-Nov-87 00:57:03 EST
Article-I.D.: cbmvax.2814
Posted: Wed Nov 18 00:57:03 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 20-Nov-87 07:24:37 EST
References: <461@ra.rice.edu> <2802@cbmvax.UUCP> <6594@sunybcs.UUCP>
Reply-To: grr@cbmvax.UUCP (George Robbins)
Organization: Commodore Technology, West Chester, PA
Lines: 49

In article <6594@sunybcs.UUCP> ugevan@joey.UUCP (Evan Kahn) writes:
> 
> 	I was at a local C-A dealer yesterday and spoke to an official rep from
> Commodore.  Specifically, I wanted to know when KS 1.3 would be available and
> found out thatit isn't schedualed for release until late next quarter (March).
> At any rate we got to talking and I mentioned to him that I was in support of
> bootable firmware as opposed to it being in ROM.  He concurred and informed me
> that there is speculation that future Amigas may have EEPROMS to hold KS.
>      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

	Maybe the distant future.   EEPROM technology still lags other
	memory technologies by quite a bit.  A single 64 K-bit EEPROM chip
	costs more than a 2 M-bit ROM, and even assuming cost/density parity
	with static ram (256 K-bit) it would add several hundred dollars to
	the retail price of the system.

> 	Apparently, a reason why KS was put into ROM was to quell fears of
> software producers, after all why should they produce a package for an OS that
> is rather variable; they will forever be providing patches.

	Sure the developers wish the software/hardware would *NEVER* change,
	but the real reason is simply a cost issue.  A WCS approach is nice,
	but the cost to every user has to be weighed against the benefit to
	the average user and the actual cost/difficulty of implementing a
	ROM based upgrade.  Future versions of the operating system could
	have support for both replacing ROM resident modules with updated
	versions with RAM and/or running Kickstart entirly from RAM.

	It should be pointed out the the A1000 was originally designed to
	contain Kickstart in ROM and that the RAM/ROM tower aka WCS was only
	added because software development was lagging far behind hardware
	development and there was little hope of delivering a stable/ROMable
	release of the operating software by the launch date.  Deification
	of the WCS as one of the Amiga's golden features developed after the
	fact.

> 	Do you guys out there think that such an EEPROM card could be made for
> the 2000 ?

	It's not hard to develop an EEPROM, or more affordably a battery-
	backed-up CMOS RAM or EPROM tower or MMU-slot card to replace the
	Kickstart ROM.  The question is really whether this is an appropriate
	and cost effective solution to a general problem, or just a useful
	tool with limited general appeal.

-- 
George Robbins - now working for,	uucp: {uunet|ihnp4|rutgers}!cbmvax!grr
but no way officially representing	arpa: cbmvax!grr@uunet.uu.net
Commodore, Engineering Department	fone: 215-431-9255 (only by moonlite)