6 replies to this topic

[OldSchoolRetroGamer]

Well I have not even seen an A1000 in person in many years but being the first Amiga I find it interesting.
Please excuse any inaccuracies as I speak only form memory off the top of my head. Now, if I recall Kickstart must be loaded from disk correct? Version 1.2 I am guessing? I know that beginning with the Amiga 500 Kickstart came built in on ROM right? So I guess my questions are:

1. Can higher versions of Kickstart be loaded into an Amiga 1000 or is it only a specific version?
2. Is there any advantage to the 1000's ability to loading kickstart, like loading say a hacked or altered version of Kickstart?
3. Is there anything else that can be loaded into a 1000 instead of kickstart that would allow the 1000 to function different or even emulate a different machine.
4. Can the 1000 be "upgraded" to a kickstart in ROM?


Also, any other plus or minus opinions on the 1000 compared to later Amiga's?

I am just fascinated about the first Amiga and appreciate all responses and comments THANKS!!!!!

[Rybags]

Apparently there were 3rd party addons to allow Kickstart ROMs to be used in the 1000.

Unsure what the highest versions of KS or Workbench are supported, I'd guess it's probably similar to the 500. So probably Workbench 2.x

Kickstart contains a lot of the OS funcitonality but some early games supposedly could boot on a 1000 without needing to preload Kickstart first. That allowed them to use more RAM. Most Amiga games (as with most 80s machines) barely use the OS anyway, they just take over everything and talk direct to the hardware.

Advantage of the 1000 - it's the original Amiga, nice seperate keyboard so you can just put the monitor on top of the box and have a more spacious desk.

Disadvantage - that initial boot time, and the early OCS had less available "chip RAM" and didn't support the half-brite mode (although apparently not much software used it)

Edited by Rybags, Fri Dec 2, 2011 6:29 AM.

[save2600]

OldSchoolRetroGamer, on Fri Dec 2, 2011 4:33 AM, said:

Well I have not even seen an A1000 in person in many years but being the first Amiga I find it interesting.
Please excuse any inaccuracies as I speak only form memory off the top of my head. Now, if I recall Kickstart must be loaded from disk correct?

Correct, although like Rybags mentioned, there are 3rd party Kickstart ROM switchers

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Version 1.2 I am guessing?

Any version* of Kickstart can be loaded into an A1000. *provided you have extra RAM and special software such as TwinKick.

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I know that beginning with the Amiga 500 Kickstart came built in on ROM right?

Yes, the A500 was originally released with Kickstart 1.2.

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1. Can higher versions of Kickstart be loaded into an Amiga 1000 or is it only a specific version?

Although 1.0 and 1.1 exist (a very small handful of early games from EA and such may require 1.1), 1.2 and 1.3 are the common Kickstarts to be loaded into an A1000. Commodore did NOT support any version higher than that to be loaded from disk (or otherwise), but workarounds exist today that allow 2.x and 3.x disks to be loaded if you have an extra 1.5mb of memory attached.

As an aside, Starflight for example, requires Kickstart 1.2. It does not work properly under 1.3 or higher. In the case where you're running an Amiga with Kickstart in ROM (but also have various Kickstarts on your HD in the form of ROM files) and using WHDLoad to boot games, *that* particular program "fixes" all sorts of compatibility issues, such as incorrect Kickstarts, too much RAM, acceleration, etc.

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2. Is there any advantage to the 1000's ability to loading kickstart, like loading say a hacked or altered version of Kickstart?

Lots of theoretical and practical advantages. First one being obvious is that there's some incompatibilities between some games and the early Kickstarts. Being able to load up a different Kickstart from disk is great, although there exists today, ways to do that on machines with Kickstart in ROM, the procedure is not as convenient as simply loading it from disk on an A1000.

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3. Is there anything else that can be loaded into a 1000 instead of kickstart that would allow the 1000 to function different or even emulate a different machine.

In general and in practice, no. But do a search for KickTOS...

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4. Can the 1000 be "upgraded" to a kickstart in ROM?

Yes, but I've never considered the shaving of a few seconds off the boot time worth the hassle and expense of doing so. There are some peripherals (such as certain accelerators) that require and Amiga have Kickstart in ROM though, so for those kinds of applications, then you'd obviously want to mod your A1000. Or get a different machine as trying to stuff accelerators in an A1000 presents many, many more problems than just good 'ol Kickstart in ROM.

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Also, any other plus or minus opinions on the 1000 compared to later Amiga's?

Regarding what Rybags said about some games not requiring Kickstart so there'd be more RAM... I believe that myth is as rare as the one game or app that ever might have demonstrated such a feature. Practically speaking, ALL Amiga apps and games require some version of Kickstart. I think what he may be talking about is that most games and some apps can get away with not needing a separate Workbench disk loaded. Some apps will include a skimpy version of Workbench on the same disk, to save memory on 256k or 512k systems, while the vast majority of games simply bypass Workbench and automatically load after Kickstart.

As for opinions, I will always love the A1000. The case design, the loadable Kickstart, just the general personality of the machine overall. It was my first Amiga and have fond memories of following its development back in the day. Yes, you're pretty much limited to only 512k Chip RAM (unless you do some serious upgrading, such as replacing the CPU board and/or WCS daughterboard ) which means you can't switch between PAL and NTSC modes or play certain games which require more Chip RAM, but again, the vast majority of games could care less about having 1mb Chip or the ECS Denise video chip for that matter.

And yeah, only super early versions of A1000 Denise couldn't do half-brite, but most of the machines out there today have the revision chip which allows half-brite modes. Great for painting, digitizing and a handful of games take advantage of it too. Super easy and cheap to replace if you happen to have an old non half-brite capable Denise.

About the only real "faults" I'd say there are about the A1000 lie in its keyboard and maybe some of its non-standard I/O ports. Parallel port is inverted actually and you need a gender changer in order to use a regular cable with it. Come to think of it, both the serial and parallel ports have voltage going to them (in ALL model Amigas) to power various devices such as digitizers, so you even have to be careful with plain old gender changers as you can still short something out when trying to hook up industry standard stuff. Of course, there are A1000 specific printer cables floating around (I have one), so those are totally safe. Serial port is not a standard DB9 type either. It's a long, 25-pinned bastard - but I always considered this less of a problem, since we're mostly talking about modems here and they usually came with their own special Amiga cable or adapter.

Keyboard is a little cramped by design, so not exactly the best keyboard in the world for serious use - but its looks, design and the fact it scuttles underneath the "garage" of the CPU makes up for all the backspacing you might do as your fingers accidentally press the wrong keys when typing.

Edited by save2600, Fri Dec 2, 2011 9:22 AM.

[desiv]

Most of these have been aswered above, but my answers:

OldSchoolRetroGamer, on Fri Dec 2, 2011 4:33 AM, said:

1. Can higher versions of Kickstart be loaded into an Amiga 1000 or is it only a specific version?

All versions of kickstart through 1.3 can be booted off of a floppy. As mentioned, there are 3rd party programs that will let you use extra RAM to softkick other versions.
Also, there's a vid out there (I don't think it's on youtube, my amiga.org or the German Amiga 1000 site??) of someone (I think his username was ratte) who took an Amiga 3.x kickstart ROM, removed things the A1000 didn't need, added a decompressor, compresses everything he could and kicked 3.x on an Amiga 1000. It was only a "for fun" demo tho, as my understanding was, it took AGES. The video was sped up..

OldSchoolRetroGamer, on Fri Dec 2, 2011 4:33 AM, said:

2. Is there any advantage to the 1000's ability to loading kickstart, like loading say a hacked or altered version of Kickstart?

Yes.
My favorite is "kickwork." Basically, a kickstart ROM is only 256k. The floppy is 800k. There's a lot of space left. So Piru at Amiga.org wrote a program that patches the trackdisk (floppy driver) to allow you to use the "rest of the space" on the disk as a WB floppy.
So, I put in my Kickwork disk, it "KICKS" to 1.3, then, instead of asking for the Workbench floppy, it just boots to Workbench 1.3.
Of course, you had to remove a lot of things on the Workbench disk, but you can run a fine Workbench in 500K.
BUT... That was before I got my sidecar Hard Disk. (it's a dual CF card actually) That requires a driver to be loaded. So...
I have a kickwork floppy that loads kickstart 1.3, then it loads the driver, then it "transfers" control to the hard disk and it continues to boot from there.
You could also probably "modify" the kickstart ROM to include the driver, but the kickwork disk made it much easier..

OldSchoolRetroGamer, on Fri Dec 2, 2011 4:33 AM, said:

3. Is there anything else that can be loaded into a 1000 instead of kickstart that would allow the 1000 to function different or even emulate a different machine.

As mentioned, yeah. Search for kicktos. (I think it's on youtube?) But, as far as I know, it was never "completed" and/or released in any fashion.
To bad, looked like a fun idea to play with...
As for games/apps for the Amiga, the only programs I am aware of that "used" kickstart RAM in anyway were Dragon's Lair (You needed a 1M Amiga (newer models) OR a 512k Amiga 1000 and it would use the kickstart space for memory) or A-Max, the Macintosh emulator (also by the same people who did Dragon's Lair) could use the kickstart area for Mac RAM.

OldSchoolRetroGamer, on Fri Dec 2, 2011 4:33 AM, said:

4. Can the 1000 be "upgraded" to a kickstart in ROM?

Yeah, there's someone who still makes those (djbase on EAB). I've considered it, but you have to do just a "bit" of soldering and trace cutting. Nothing difficult, but combing that with the fact that I like kicking from floppy..

OldSchoolRetroGamer, on Fri Dec 2, 2011 4:33 AM, said:

Also, any other plus or minus opinions on the 1000 compared to later Amiga's?

-The only "real" issue is Agnus CHIP. You only get 512k CHIP RAM and no PAL. If you want to work with graphics/etc, it can be limiting and the only way around it is a super rare motherboard swapout to a 3rd party motherboard (which is no longer really an Amiga 1000....) My Amiga 500 (with the 512k expansion), I can cut one trace and add one bit of solder, and I have 1M CHIP. I add an addon (DKB minimegaCHIP which is generally found pretty easily) and I get 2M of CHIP if needed.
Of course, I never played PAL games on my Amiga 500 in PAL back in the day and I didn't mind much. There was still plenty.
-Yeah, the super early Amigas didn't have EHB, but very little actually uses it. (Black Crypt comes to mind) and it's easy to swap out a DENISE chip.

My only issue is that my Amiga 1000 is pretty beat up. (I got it that way)
It mostly works, but my A-Max (which works on my Amiga 500) doesn't work.. I suspect the 12v line. Also, the RCA audio plugs need to be replaced. One of them only works with a piece of plastic stuffed under it.. (As I said, it had a hard life before I got it..)

If/when I got it fixed up, it will replace my A500 as my main "retro" Amiga. I don't need PAL (I can use my Amiga 1200 with WHDLOAD for that) I don't need more CHIP RAM, again, my A1200 is my more "productive" machine so it's the one that could use more CHIP RAM..

It's (IMHO) the nicest looking of all the Amigas....

desiv

[save2600]

Forgot to mention... it's nice that the A1000 has composite output built in. Not only that, but it outputs a better looking picture than the A520 video adapter does. The A500 and A2000 have composite video, but it outputs black and white only.

Yeah, I needed a refresher on this whole Dragon's Lair/Kickstart thing. Sounds as if Dragon's Lair (you still NEED Kickstart to boot it of course), "kicks" Kickstart out of the WCS and uses that 256k for itself. Probably for frame buffering or samples? Some people make it sound as if you can boot the game without Kickstart, which is untrue. While I've heard people talk about demos and stuff that they thought did not require a Kickstart loading first, I am unaware of any game or application, besides a couple of modern programs from Ratte, where this is actually the case. All my AMAX disks require Kickstart to be loaded first too of course.

Edited by save2600, Fri Dec 2, 2011 10:44 AM.

[desiv]

save2600, on Fri Dec 2, 2011 9:52 AM, said:

Forgot to mention... it's nice that the A1000 has composite output built in. Not only that, but it outputs a better looking picture than the A520 video adapter does. The A500 and A2000 have composite video, but it outputs black and white only.

Oh, good catch on the color composite out!! It's great quality!!

save2600, on Fri Dec 2, 2011 9:52 AM, said:

@Desiv, all of my copies I've ever had of Dragon's Lair, still require Kickstart to be loaded in an A1000. I've heard this mentioned before though, but have been unable to verify it.

I'll test mine. It might still need to use the kickstart to boot, but then use the kickstart RAM after it takes over.

save2600, on Fri Dec 2, 2011 9:52 AM, said:

Oh and KickTOS seems to be complete, wrong language and PAL native, but I've got a copy. Just *seems* incomplete, but that's AtariST TOS for you. :runs&ducks: I was shocked as shit though how barebones, sorry, streamlined TOS/GEM is when I *finally* did manage to get a 520ST and an SF314 to work.

You got a copy of KickTOS? Is there a link anywhere? Just wondering..
Last I heard (which was a while ago), there was a keyboard problem...er.. OH..
Just read the "PAL native" part.. Never mind the link then. My 1000 is NTSC..
Glad it's out and works tho..

desiv

Edited by desiv, Fri Dec 2, 2011 10:34 AM.

[save2600]

Even though KickTOS is PAL, it still works. Just has the typical 1/8" crop is all.

Can't remember what all is wrong or missing though. It was fun to poke around with for a few minutes, but never really had a desire to turn my Amiga into an ST or IBM clone. Not even an old Mac.

Edited by save2600, Fri Dec 2, 2011 11:01 AM.