[HN Gopher] Dual Kickstart ROM Replacement for Amiga
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Dual Kickstart ROM Replacement for Amiga
Author : doener
Score : 68 points
Date : 2025-04-12 17:26 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| Daviey wrote:
| As someone that thanks Amiga for introducing me to my passion for
| technology (specifically the 500), I am really impressed that
| active development is happening on a 35 year old platform.. But
| somewhat surprised.
| amichail wrote:
| In hindsight, do you think you would have benefited more using
| Turbo Pascal on a PC?
| vardump wrote:
| Having had both available, Amiga definitely benefited me
| more.
| Daviey wrote:
| Nah, late 90's I switched to PC but didn't feel at "home"
| until I discovered Linux (slackware, then Debian and friends)
| amichail wrote:
| Did you ever try Turbo Pascal? In the mid 80s, it had no
| equal.
| vardump wrote:
| 40 year old platform. That's when Amiga 1000 was released.
| Daviey wrote:
| I said 35 years, because the description on github includes
| these models: 1. Amiga 3000 (1990) 2.
| Amiga 3000T (1991) - Tower version of the 3000 3. Amiga
| 4000 (1992) 4. Amiga 1200 (1992) - Released shortly
| after the 4000 5. Amiga 4000T (1994) - Tower version of
| the 4000 6. Amiga 4000CR (1996) - Cost Reduced version
| 7. Amiga 4000TX - No idea and not heard of it before
| actionfromafar wrote:
| So they designed five board layouts of the ROM replacement
| for various revisions of hardware. That's some real
| dedication.
| apples_oranges wrote:
| It's just fun to program close to the hardware. On modern
| systems there are 10 layers between your program and the
| silicon.
| mark_round wrote:
| It's a lot of fun, still! I touched on it in my "Amiga Systems
| Programming in 2023" post[1] which had some discussion here[2].
| In the few years since then there's been lots of development
| still across the whole scene. OS4 is largely stagnating
| (although I still fire up my X5000 whenever I have a chance)
| but the classic 68k scene is positively thriving.
|
| Lots of great software & homebrew games, and the hardware
| options now are just amazing. There's FPGA, emulation, PiStorm
| accelerators, Vampire, re-amiga... and only this month,
| Hyperion released an updated OS3.2[3].
|
| It was (and is) such a versatile, forward-thinking platform and
| I still very much enjoy seeing how far the community can take
| it.
|
| [1]=https://www.markround.com/blog/2023/08/30/amiga-systems-
| prog...
|
| [2]=https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37389376
|
| [3]=https://www.hyperion-entertainment.com
| icedchai wrote:
| Same. The Amiga got me started with C programming, eventually
| leading me to Linux, etc.
| tom_ wrote:
| Just about every old platform seems to have a bunch of people
| building hardware stuff like this and writing new software. For
| 1980s stuff it's just all a lot simpler than it was back then,
| and what was cutting edge at the time is hobbyist tier today.
|
| For software, you have modern computer power to bring to bear
| on the problem. Assembly/compilation/precomputation/prototyping
| is far quicker, and the debugging possibilities with an
| emulator are way ahead of anything you'd ever have had at the
| time. For hardware items there are freely available design
| tools, many cost-effective options for small production run
| manufacture, and for stuff like the Amiga (where nothing
| happens at more than about 16 MHz) logic analyzers are cheap.
|
| And the Internet makes discussing things a lot easier too!
| bogantech wrote:
| This is awesome - not only is it a ROM replacement but it can be
| programmed by the Amiga itself
|
| It also has a feature where you can exchange files with a pc
| connected via USB
| unixhero wrote:
| I let my Amiga hobby lapse. I realized that what I wanted was
| friends to come over so we could play together. But we never meet
| up like that any more. Everyone has kids. And now I have 8 Amigas
| that are collecting dust.
| sonofhans wrote:
| Oh wow. I remember the first time I played on an Amiga,
| freshman year college, 1988. Growing up on Commodores and Apple
| II and DOS, it looked like science fiction. I thought a 3.5"
| floppy was a hard drive.
|
| We played a lot of a split-screen air combat game that was fun.
| And a racing game that was unreasonably hard.
| robinsonb5 wrote:
| There's a monthly Norwich Amiga Group meeting not too far from
| where I live - there's usually around 20 people there with
| various machines, and occasional 2- or 4-player game
| tournaments!
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