#2090-2090a swap
2 messages in this thread
Dean – if there is a disk in the system, how does the Amiga know it isn't
bootable? It READS it, of course. The whole track. 11k of "stuff". That's
enough code (especially since it can be ANY code, including updates, bug
fixes, etc) to boot anything, which is MY definition of flexible. It can
also be enough code to load whatever they are adding to the KS – which
means they didn't have to add it to the ROMS at all, which is my whole
point. AutoBoot is fine…. I even like it… but it was NOT more important
than fixing the problems that currently plague the system – it's not as
important as hardly ANYTHING that they _ought_ to have on their agenda.
Important, I won't argue about. Flexible I will! The problem I see
with loading the boot code from floppy is that each manufacturer would have
to produce their own 'boot floppy', and in doing so would keep any other
device from 'autobooting'. As I said earlier, autoboot is much much more
than just bringing up AmigaDos. With autoboot you could plug in a board and
have access to a network, without having to install any driver code on your
system. You can have every partition on every HD, WORM drive, optical disk,
ect… mounted, just by plugging in the controller board associated with
that device, and the boot off of the highest priority device in the system.
You could concieveably even replace Exec with autoboot, to the point of
supporting retargetable graphics! (my idea, not supported by claims from
CBM) With booting from floppy in the manner you describe, the only thing
you could do is to boot from a single manufacturers device, without the
opportunity to do any of the other things that autoboot currently is
capable of. And I'm certain that there are other companys out there that
have applications for autoboot that I haven't dreamed of. -Dean