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46-563: Autoconfig is integrated within the Amiga's Kickstart firmware, usually stored in ROM . When the system is switched on, AmigaOS interrogates each expansion device in turn and assigns address space or resources as needed. For example, in the case of a memory card, the OS can dynamically add the memory to the system. Through Autoconfig the OS can access firmware on expansion devices, for example, to boot from

92-584: A speech synthesis library developed by Softvoice, Inc . Many A1000 owners remained attached to their machines long after newer models rendered the units technically obsolete, and it attracted numerous aftermarket upgrades. Many CPU upgrades that plugged into the Motorola 68000 socket functioned in the A1000. Additionally, a line of products called the Rejuvenator series allowed the use of newer chipsets in

138-407: A disk connected to a hard disk controller. Expansion devices respond to certain fixed memory addresses starting at hexadecimal 0xE8 0000 (or 0xFF00 0000 for Zorro III ) if the /CFGIN signal is asserted and the device is not already configured. The CPU reads nibbles of configuration information (usually supplied by a PAL ) such as manufacturer ID, product ID, and the amount of address space

184-471: A name for the airline ticket and Joe Pillow was born. The engineers ( RJ Mical and Dale Luck) who flew with the Amiga prototype (codenamed Lorraine ) drew a happy face on the front of the pillowcase and even added a tie. Joe Pillow extended his fifteen minutes of fame when the Amiga went to production. All fifty-three Amiga team members who worked on the project signed the Amiga case. This included Joe Pillow and Jay Miner 's dog Michy who each got to "sign"

230-592: A partition specifically named WB_1.3 or WB_2.x, respectively, and put in DEVS:kickstart, an absolute system location from where the A3000 system will find it at bootstrap and copy its image into RAM. This early A3000 supported both ROM based Kickstarts and disk-based Kickstarts, although not simultaneously. An A3000 configured to use disk-based Kickstart images had the benefit of being able to boot various versions of AmigaOS without additional tools, simply by selecting

276-431: A short color on screen at power-on which can be the last background color. Keep in mind that bad activity on the databus that should not be there can have effect on other chips on the bus. The keyboard LED uses blink codes that come from the keyboard controller chip where: In general, to run a specific Workbench version, it is generally required to run a Kickstart with a corresponding or greater version number. It

322-500: A short program that can produce a color on the screen corresponding with a fault. If everything works correctly, the following screen color sequence will be displayed on older Kickstarts: The following colors indicate a problem: However, if an Amiga give a colorcode, it does not always mean that the error comes from a hardware fault, red can also happen if a ROM is mapped to fastmem or by ROM-patches from software. For yellow it can be unstable software in memory. Some Amigas can give

368-481: A single motherboard socket with some mechanism to switch between them. These became popular with users who had problems with later Kickstart versions causing incompatibility with earlier software titles. An MMU -enabled Amiga is able to "shadow" Kickstart from the embedded ROM chip (or from file) into RAM and pass control to it at start-up. This is often preferable as RAM access times are significantly faster than ROM, particularly on expanded systems. At subsequent resets

414-514: A small degree of software incompatibility. Third-party CPU upgrades, which mostly fit in the CPU socket, use faster 68020 or 68030 microprocessors and integrated memory, as well as provide support for a 68881 or 68882 FPU . Such upgrades often have the option to revert to 68000 mode for full compatibility. Some boards have a socket to seat the original 68000, whereas the 68030 cards typically come with an on-board 68000. The original Amiga 1000

460-636: A star-studded gala featuring Andy Warhol and Debbie Harry held at the Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Center in New York City , machines began shipping in September with a base configuration of 256 KB of RAM at the retail price of US$ 1,295 . A 13-inch (330 mm) analog RGB monitor was available for around US$ 300 , bringing the price of a complete Amiga system to US$ 1,595 (equivalent to $ 4,520 in 2023). Before

506-523: A virtual address system, as used in PCI , would require a minor revision to Autoconfig. The Amiga 2000 can accommodate five Zorro expansion cards, such as, RAM expansions, SCSI controllers and graphic cards. However the standard does not put a limit on the number of devices. In the A2000, two Zorro II slots are aligned with ISA slots. The Zorro bus and ISA bus can be connected by means of a "bridgeboard", such as,

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552-638: Is not generally possible to boot directly into the Workbench windowing environment from Kickstart alone. Though much of the functionality required for Workbench is contained in Kickstart, as some disk-based components are needed to launch it. From release 2.0 onwards it is possible to enter a boot menu by holding down both mouse buttons at power on or reset. This allows the user to choose a boot device, set parameters for backwards compatibility and examine Autoconfig hardware. With third-party software , it

598-511: Is part of the Zorro II and Zorro III expansion bus specification for configuring expansion devices in Amiga systems. Zorro II was first used in the Amiga 2000, though a similar expansion bus is present on the Amiga 1000 . Zorro II is a relatively straightforward extension of the 68000 bus. Autoconfig requires the 68000 data and address bus to be available to all devices on the bus. In theory,

644-457: Is possible to use an alternate Kickstart to the version stored in the embedded ROM chip. Such software allows a Kickstart version to be loaded from file into RAM  – for example Kickstart 1.3 may be loaded in order to run old software incompatible with Kickstart 2.0 or later. Several third-party vendors produced hardware Kickstart switchers ( dual-boot systems) in the form of socket doublers in order to allow two ROM chips to plug into

690-465: Is the only model to have 256  KB of Amiga Chip RAM , which can be expanded to 512 KB with the addition of a daughterboard under a cover in the center front of the machine. RAM may also be upgraded via official and third-party upgrades, with a practical upper limit of about 9  MB of "fast RAM" due to the 68000's 24-bit address bus . This memory is accessible only by the CPU permitting faster code execution as DMA cycles are not shared with

736-493: The A1000 , required that Kickstart 1.x be loaded from floppy disk into a 256  KB section of RAM called the writable control store (WCS). Some A1000 software titles (notably Dragon's Lair ) provided an alternative code-base in order to use the extra 256 KB for data. Later Amiga models had Kickstart embedded in a ROM chip, thus improving boot times. Many Amiga 1000 computers were modified to take these chips. Kickstart

782-428: The /CFGIN of the next would create the problem that an unoccupied slot would break the configuration chain. To solve this, the backplane ORs the /CFGIN and /CFGOUT signals to form the /CFGIN for the next slot (/CFGOUT is pulled low if undriven), which allows empty slots to be bypassed. This requires one 74LS32 (quad OR gate) on the Amiga 2000, which is the only motherboard hardware required by Autoconfig. Autoconfig

828-464: The 7th greatest PC of all time. In 2007, it was rated by the same magazine as the 37th best tech product of all time. Also that year, IDG Sweden ranked it the 10th best computer of all time. " Joe Pillow " was the name given on the ticket for the extra airline seat purchased to hold the first Amiga prototype while on the way to the January 1984 Consumer Electronics Show . The airlines required

874-435: The A1000, and an Australian -designed replacement A1000 motherboard called The Phoenix utilized the same chipset as the A3000 and added an A2000-compatible video slot and on-board SCSI controller. In its product preview, Byte magazine was impressed by the computer's multitasking capabilities and the quality of its graphics and sound systems. It also praised its text-to-speech library for voice output, and predicted that

920-506: The Amiga chipset and some core OS components. It will then check for connected boot devices and attempt to boot from the one with the highest boot priority. If no boot device is present a screen will be displayed asking the user to insert a boot disk – typically a floppy disk. Insertion of such a bootable disk (other than workbench-like disk) will result in: a) a command line interface ("CLI") prompt to operate with ROM-internal and disks commands (including programs, scripts) (if

966-583: The Amiga designers (similar to the Macintosh ); including Jay Miner and the paw print of his dog Mitchy. The A1000's case was designed by Howard Stolz . As Senior Industrial Designer at Commodore, Stolz was the mechanical lead and primary interface with Sanyo in Japan, the contract manufacturer for the A1000 casing. The Amiga 1000 was manufactured in two variations: One uses the NTSC television standard and

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1012-498: The Amiga would be successful enough to influence the personal computer industry. The Amiga 1000 was released to positive reviews. Compute! lauded it as an inexpensive, truly general-purpose computer that might break preconceptions dividing the microcomputer marketplace. In this case, it was capable of outperforming most business, as well as arcade game machines and delivering sampled sound, making it suitable for offices, gamers, and digital artists. Computer Gaming World praised

1058-580: The Janus Hardware Emulator, which allows emulation of Intel 80286 or 80386 systems. Zorro III is the 32 bit auto-configuring expansion bus of Amiga 3000 and Amiga 4000 systems. From the A3000 design onwards, it was deemed desirable for all enumerable hardware expansions to use Autoconfig. It is OS-legal for non-Autoconfig hardware to be completely ignored and the standard was adopted in AmigaOS 3.1. In early Commodore documents it

1104-611: The Kickstart firmware stored on ROM chips. Commodore's AmigaOS was formed of both the Kickstart firmware and a software component provided on disk (with the software portion often termed as Workbench ). For most AmigaOS updates the Kickstart version number was matched to the Workbench version number. Confusingly, Commodore also used internal revision numbers for Kickstart chips. For example, there were several Kickstart revisions designated as version 2.0. The first Amiga model,

1150-504: The OS was not placed in ROM then. Instead, the A1000 includes a daughterboard with 256  KB of RAM, dubbed the "writable control store" (WCS), into which the core of the operating system is loaded from floppy disk (this portion of the operating system is known as the " Kickstart "). The WCS is write-protected after loading, and system resets do not require a reload of the WCS. In Europe, the WCS

1196-731: The appropriate Kickstart image at boot time. The Commodore CDTV featured additional firmware ROMs which are not technically part of the Amiga Kickstart. The CDTV's original firmware ROMs must be upgraded in order to install a Kickstart version later than 1.3. AmigaOS 2.1 was a pure software update and did not require matching Kickstart ROM chips. Workbench 2.1 ran on all Kickstart ROMs of the 2.0x family. Later releases of AmigaOS (3.5 and 3.9) were also software only and did not include matching ROM upgrades instead requiring Kickstart 3.1, with ROM-file based Kickstart components replacing those in ROM. Kickstart modules of AmigaOS 4 are stored on

1242-426: The boot disk partition. Up to Kickstart v2.0 (V36) only 512-byte blocks were supported. Motorola 68040 uses write caches that requires the use of the functions CacheClearU() and CacheControl() to flush cache when program code has been modified. These functions are only available in Kickstart 2.0 or better. Upon start-up or reset the Kickstart performs a number of diagnostic and system checks and then initializes

1288-627: The chipset. The Amiga 1000 features an 86-pin expansion port (electrically identical to the later Amiga 500 expansion port, though the A500's connector is inverted). This port is used by third-party expansions such as memory upgrades and SCSI adapters. These resources are handled by the Amiga Autoconfig standard. Other expansion options are available including a bus expander which provides two Zorro-II slots. Graphic modes with up to 16 on-screen colors: Introduced on July 23, 1985, during

1334-415: The computer to be connected directly to some monitors other than their standard RGB monitor. The A1000 also has a "TV MOD" output, into which an RF Modulator can be plugged, allowing connection to older televisions that did not have a composite video input. The original 68000 CPU can be directly replaced with a Motorola 68010 , which can execute instructions slightly faster than the 68000 but also introduces

1380-425: The copy of Kickstart is re-used, reducing boot time and allowing faster access and execution of Kickstart functionality. Similar shadowing functions were also developed for some devices without MMU hardware. Amiga 1000 The Amiga 1000 , also known as the A1000 , is the first personal computer released by Commodore International in the Amiga line. It combines the 16/32-bit Motorola 68000 CPU which

1426-401: The core components of the Amiga's operating system , such as: Kickstart 1.3 is the first version to support booting from a hard disk drive . From AmigaOS release 2.0 onwards Kickstart also contained device drivers to boot from devices on IDE controllers, support for PC Card ports and various other hardware built into Amiga models. At power-on self-test will run from the ROM, this is

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1472-412: The device requires. The CPU then writes a base memory address to the device (or tells it to "shut up" if for some reason it can't be configured), and the device asserts /CFGOUT. The /CFGIN of the first device is tied to ground. The second device's /CFGIN is controlled by the first device's /CFGOUT, and so on. In a backplane design such as the Amiga 2000 , connecting the /CFGOUT of one slot directly to

1518-540: The disk is non-workbench, or empty), or b) a (basic) point and click UI named "Workbench" if the disk contains at least "loadwb" in the "startup-sequence" script residing inside the "s"-folder on this disk. c) the disk booting into a customized workbench or an application, keeping the OS "alive" in the background. d) a game or other application directly starting up, taking over all the hardware resources of this computer by avoiding to establish core Exec multitasking, driver initialization etc. The Kickstart contains many of

1564-487: The machine's versatility without any obvious hardware shortcomings and stressed that it was ideal for game designers demanding fewer system constraints. Creative Computing magazine had only minor criticisms for what they otherwise called a "dream machine." These criticisms were directed toward its case quality, the disk drives slowing during certain operations, and not finding an AUTOEXEC command in AmigaDOS, though

1610-490: The marketing vice president of Commodore, Clive Smith, assured the magazine that later production units would address most of its complaints. Months after the Amiga 1000 was released, InfoWorld offered a mixed review. It praised Intuition and the customizability of Workbench, but took issue with the operating system's bugs such as memory overflow and screen flickering of single lines as a result of their being interleaved when displayed in high resolution mode. It also criticized

1656-661: The other uses the PAL television standard. The NTSC variant was the initial model manufactured and sold in North America . The later PAL model was manufactured in Germany and sold in countries using the PAL television standard. The first NTSC systems lack the EHB video mode which is present in all later Amiga models. Because AmigaOS was rather buggy at the time of the A1000's release,

1702-477: The preproduction Amiga was almost identical to the production version: the main difference being an embossed Commodore logo in the top left corner. It did not have the developer signatures. The Amiga 1000 has a Motorola 68000 CPU running at 7.15909  MHz on NTSC systems or 7.09379 MHz on PAL systems, precisely double the video color carrier frequency for NTSC or 1.6 times the color carrier frequency for PAL. The system clock timings are derived from

1748-410: The primary memory can be expanded up to 8.5 MB. The A1000 has a number of characteristics that distinguish it from later Amiga models: It is the only model to feature the short-lived Amiga check-mark logo on its case, the majority of the case is elevated slightly to give a storage area for the keyboard when not in use (a "keyboard garage"), and the inside of the case is engraved with the signatures of

1794-515: The release of the Amiga 500 and Amiga 2000 models in 1987, the A1000 was marketed as simply the Amiga , although the model number was there from the beginning, as the original box indicates. In the US, the A1000 was marketed as The Amiga from Commodore , with the Commodore logo omitted from the case. The Commodore branding was retained for the international versions. Additionally, the Amiga 1000

1840-414: The sparseness of the software library preventing the publication from fully realizing the computer's potential. In 1994, as Commodore filed for bankruptcy, Byte magazine called the Amiga 1000 "the first multimedia computer ... so far ahead of its time that almost nobody—including Commodore's marketing department—could fully articulate what it was all about". In 2006, PC World rated the Amiga 1000 as

1886-482: The video frequency, which simplifies glue logic and allows the Amiga ;1000 to make do with a single crystal . In keeping with its video game heritage, the chipset was designed to synchronize CPU memory access and chipset DMA so the hardware runs in real time without wait-state delays. Though most units were sold with an analog RGB monitor, the A1000 also has a built-in composite video output which allows

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1932-501: Was often referred to as WOM (Write Once Memory), a play on the more conventional term "ROM" ( read-only memory ). The preproduction Amiga (which was codenamed "Velvet") released to developers in early 1985 contained 128 KB of RAM with an option to expand it to 256 KB. Commodore later increased the system memory to 256 KB due to objections by the Amiga development team. The names of the custom chips were different; Denise and Paula were called Daphne and Portia respectively. The casing of

1978-401: Was powerful by 1985 standards with one of the most advanced graphics and sound systems in its class. It runs a preemptive multitasking operating system that fits into 256 KB of read-only memory and was shipped with 256 KB of RAM. The primary memory can be expanded internally with a manufacturer-supplied 256 KB module for a total of 512 KB of RAM. Using the external slot

2024-523: Was sold exclusively in computer stores in the US rather than the various non computer-dedicated department and toy stores through which the VIC-20 and Commodore 64 were retailed. These measures were an effort to avoid Commodore's "toy-store" computer image created during the Tramiel era. Along with the operating system, the machine came bundled with a version of AmigaBASIC developed by Microsoft and

2070-465: Was stored in 256 KB ROM chips for releases prior to AmigaOS 2.0. Later releases used 512 KB ROM chips containing additional and improved functionality. The Amiga CD32 featured a 1 MB ROM (Kickstart 3.1) with additional firmware and an integrated file system for CD-ROM . Early A3000 models were, like the A1000, also shipped with Kickstart on floppy disk, and used a 1.4 BETA ROM as bootstrap. Either Kickstart 1.3 or 2.0 could be extracted to

2116-450: Was styled Auto Configuration , auto-config or AutoConfig , whereas in later documents it was styled AUTOCONFIG . Kickstart (Amiga) Kickstart is the bootstrap firmware of the Amiga computers developed by Commodore International . Its purpose is to initialize the Amiga hardware and core components of AmigaOS and then attempt to boot from a bootable volume , such as a floppy disk . Most Amiga models were shipped with

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