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/  Forum Index
   /  Amiga OS4 Hardware
      /  Are you willing to pay $100-$200 for updated firmware.
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Poll : Pick the hardware you like new firmware for.
AmigaONE-X1000 CFE
AmigaONE-XE UBOOT
Open Firmware / Pegasus II
 
PosterThread
NutsAboutAmiga 
Re: Are you willing to pay $100-$200 for updated firmware.
Posted on 6-Oct-2021 16:37:22
#21 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 9-Jun-2004
Posts: 12791
From: Norway

@MigthyMax

Wherry likely I say, the hardware contains more or less the same things.

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TRIPOS 
Re: Are you willing to pay $100-$200 for updated firmware.
Posted on 6-Oct-2021 18:43:36
#22 ]
Super Member
Joined: 4-Apr-2014
Posts: 1204
From: Unknown

@NutsAboutAmiga

Quote:

NutsAboutAmiga wrote:
@Cheese

Not sure anyone has problem paying MorphOS team, if they decided to work on firmware, lots of talent, does not need to be Hyperion, CFE, UBOOT, Open (Smart) Firmware it’s all open source, and I’m not sure additions are so complicated to add.

I’m sure MorphOS team is motivated put MorphOS butterfly logo in before the OS boots.


Maybe you didn’t know that ”the MorphOS Team” (Bigfoot) made the X5000 firmware?

And no butterfly…

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TRIPOS 
Re: Are you willing to pay $100-$200 for updated firmware.
Posted on 6-Oct-2021 20:18:20
#23 ]
Super Member
Joined: 4-Apr-2014
Posts: 1204
From: Unknown

@billt

Quote:

billt wrote:

And Perhaps we can start a new uboot port to peg2.


1) The Smart Firmware has special features that provides a way for Operating Systems to quick and easy set up the system at boot without actually knowing anything about the hardware. AFAIK, MorphOS doesn’t make use of this but instead has its own code to set up the machine. But I believe OS4 rely on this to bring up the Pegasos 2. I recall the Friedens credited this feature of Smart Firmware as an explanation to why it went so quick and easy to enable Pegasos 2 support in OS4 (I believe their words about this can be found on this very site). A different firmware in Pegasos 2 would most certainly require lowlevel changes to the Pegasos 2 version of OS4 (OS4 versions are compartmented to particular HW).

2) There were 5 different HW revisions of the Pegasos 2 motherboard, all with subtle differences between the board revisions I believe, especially on memory handling, and there is no single universal firmware for all five revisions. The rev 5 motherboard has a firmware version that a rev 1 motherboard probably couldn’t use (at least I’m not aware of it ever happening, and it has been discussed much on other sites). A rev 5 motherboard with its particular firmware was able to use more memory (given that it is of a particular kind) than previous versions, and also the 7447A CPU card I believe (which was never serial manufactured). A firmware is a lowlevel glue that is custom made to handle particular bare metal characteristics of the HW, they are not “drivers” that operates on a much higher abstraction level. And this probably requires expert knowledge that only the HW manufacturer possess, or you would be in for a very challenging detective work to make all five board revisions work perfectly stable. I think there is a reason to why firmware/BIOS updates are always provided by the board manufacturers themselves and not by third party developers. Also, making a firmware requires a special kind of competence I belive, a kind that is rare around here these days.

3) We are talking about (almost) 20(!) year old hardware that became obsolete performance wise a decade ago and are now beginning to reach an age where they can be considered retro. And people talk about updating firmware?! A couple of dudes willing to chip in a hundred dollars or two will not make this feasible. No way!

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OldFart 
Re: Are you willing to pay $100-$200 for updated firmware.
Posted on 8-Oct-2021 19:29:54
#24 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 12-Sep-2004
Posts: 3059
From: Stad; en d'r is moar ain stad en da's Stad. Makkelk zat!

@NutsAboutAmiga and most, if not all, other contributants:

Have you EVER laid an eye on UBOOT sourcecode? In honesty I can admit I have and my thoughts are with the poor sods who've taken it on them to 'maintain' that code...
Yikes! was the first thing that came up in my mind. No really, it's NO trivial task to put some uniformism (is that understandable, acceptable or even correct English?) into that code in order to make it READable in the sense of scan reading in stead of interpretive reading. It really looks a mess and I've tried to rewrite the whole archive with respect to the relevant and interesting parts. Uniformity in variable type-names (u32 --> uint32 f.i.), Uniformity in function names (most function names are written in that typical Linux-fashion, ressembling the title of Woody Allen's famous film), of: "All_I_wanted_to_know_about_sex()"), which can leave one rather clueless about what the function tries to achieve.

Over time I have rewritten large portions of the archive, but not the full, relevant part of the archive. In some functions I really got lost and finally I gave up, realising I could spend my time in a better way, even if this just meant staring bleary-eyed out of the window on a rainy sunday afternoon. But hey, every now and then I get the idea again of continuing the effort.

In short: UBOOT is a mess and not for the fainthearted to try to grasp its workings. This, however, is my not so extremely humble opinion!

Ok, my two cents until Christmas and like someone here had his sig saying that no cause was lost when there was one man (M/F) still fighting for it.

OldFart

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NutsAboutAmiga 
Re: Are you willing to pay $100-$200 for updated firmware.
Posted on 8-Oct-2021 19:47:50
#25 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 9-Jun-2004
Posts: 12791
From: Norway

@OldFart

>correct English?

Are you kidding, it should be translated to Norwegian

“All_I_wanted_to_know_about_sex()”

not sure there, good style guides to old C code, ruby the its always camel case, for Phyton style (PEP 8), it’s always underscored. I guess developers come from different backgrounds.

“AllIwantedToKnowAboutSex()” or allIWantedToKnowAboutSex()”

personally like to mix, category_subCategory_functionName()

namespace's is part of C++, not C, but grouping things helps organize things.

sex_about_all();
sex_about();

Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 08-Oct-2021 at 08:05 PM.
Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 08-Oct-2021 at 08:00 PM.
Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 08-Oct-2021 at 07:58 PM.

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Deniil715 
Re: Are you willing to pay $100-$200 for updated firmware.
Posted on 8-Oct-2021 20:07:59
#26 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 14-May-2003
Posts: 4235
From: Sweden

@NutsAboutAmiga

I'll pay $100 for faster (instant) loading of kickstart on my X1000. Also faster run-through of the HW at power-on. Support for newer gfx card is probaby also nice to have, but that might be much more diffcult.

I finally have a PC that cold boots in like 10 seconds. Finally! After, what, 25 years? Once upon a time Amigas (with HDs) booted fast too, but we lost that with the NG machines which boot in several steps, taking ages through bios, then loads kickstart in the slowest mode possible.

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NutsAboutAmiga 
Re: Are you willing to pay $100-$200 for updated firmware.
Posted on 8-Oct-2021 20:26:44
#27 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 9-Jun-2004
Posts: 12791
From: Norway

@Deniil715

Faster loading you need know, kickstart modules are placed into RAM, you need know how slb2 work or kickstart loader on X1000, you can discompile it I guess, but won’t be simple to do, for someone outside of inner circle.

Was suggesting join the files into one large file, compress it, and skip the filesystem, and some kind simple compression that is not CPU intensive (RLE maybe) to reduce amount that has to be loaded (10%).

Also there is lot that is loaded that do not need to be loaded, it good if stuff that is not used is not loaded, unless you’re booting into recovery.

Being able to disable stuff in CFE/UBOOT might also help speed up the boot process, stuff that does not need to be initilazed. (How many USB ports do you need in early boot.)

Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 08-Oct-2021 at 09:10 PM.
Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 08-Oct-2021 at 08:29 PM.
Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 08-Oct-2021 at 08:27 PM.
Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 08-Oct-2021 at 08:27 PM.

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Hypex 
Re: Are you willing to pay $100-$200 for updated firmware.
Posted on 10-Oct-2021 15:38:25
#28 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 6-May-2007
Posts: 11180
From: Greensborough, Australia

@NutsAboutAmiga

Quote:
Faster loading you need know, kickstart modules are placed into RAM, you need know how slb2 work or kickstart loader on X1000, you can discompile it I guess, but won?t be simple to do, for someone outside of inner circle.


After some R&D on the X1Boot Project I can fill you in. The SLB as it were is loaded in by CFE as an OF binary. When you pick a menu item it loads in the Kicikstart files using the OF RTAS in embedded in CFE. Infact any binary running on CFE in runnng in OF, as at that pointe CFE ceases to exist, since it's only a user interface. Indeed, try and exit, it will crash within moments. Once that is done, it builds a KickList of KickModule objects, my names, that is a linked list of Kickstart modules. It passes that to the EXEC loader.of, supposedly Exec from the Kicklayout comments, but I think they mean EXECutable as Exec itself is in the kernel MODULE.

But I think to be be fast and more like the original hardware it should load from flash RAM. Should be a KickFlash by now. The X5000 can almost do it, with UBoot being loaded off SD card. Of course, it should just load the Kickstart in fast mode, so we wouldn't notice.

Quote:
Was suggesting join the files into one large file, compress it, and skip the filesystem, and some kind simple compression that is not CPU intensive (RLE maybe) to reduce amount that has to be loaded (10%).


I've been thinking I should try and experiement with my X1Boot loader to see if I can load in a compressed Kickstart. I'd still need to code it. But I've always been interested in doing it.

As to compression, I wouldn't bother using RLE. Just use the best! I'm serious. In X1Boot I added both common GZ and best XZ formats. XZ was best I could find with optimised LZMA PPC code filter. On average a 13MB GZ file will be about 8MB in XZ/PPC. But it's more than size. XZ unpacks really fast! It only takes a second or two. GZ, OTOH, takes about 5 or more seconds and I worry it won't boot if ti takes too long. The only download is XZ takes ages to pack.

Quote:
Also there is lot that is loaded that do not need to be loaded, it good if stuff that is not used is not loaded, unless you?re booting into recovery.


Good luck with that! Got a HDD problem? Your SATA cable faulty? CFE will crash on you! Which brings me to more bugs. Fixing the crashes would help. Only in Amiga land do you get away with releasing machines using buggy firmware that crashes easily.

Quote:
Being able to disable stuff in CFE/UBOOT might also help speed up the boot process, stuff that does not need to be initilazed. (How many USB ports do you need in early boot.)


From my usage you only need one. For the keyboard. I'm not aware of CFE using any other USB device at bootup.

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