Overview
The 3.1 ROM, initially released in the CD³² hardware in 1993, was the last Amiga
ROM version released by
Commodore/Amiga.
The 3.X series by Cloanto, first released in 1999, aims to remain as true to the original as possible
while merging some essential updates, the most notable of which being the
ability to boot from "large" hard disks. This was originally released
by Amiga (under the ESCOM and Gateway ownership) as a "SetPatch", while the Amiga
Forever ROM distribution made it officially
possible to use it as a native ROM, without
requiring a reboot.
For maximum compatibility
with the existing code base, the original binary code was largely preserved,
limiting recompilation and thus the potential for new bugs to a minimum.
Since the initial release, further 3.X ROM
improvements followed in 2006, 2014 and
2016. All were designed for use across the
Amiga Forever product series, i.e. including
both emulation and Classic
Support scenarios ("real" Amiga
hardware).
System Requirements
The 3.X ROMs have a size of 512 KB, and
are therefore compatible
with all Amiga models except for the Amiga
1000. In order to make room for the
enhancements, the 3.X ROMs employ the same
technique used by Commodore for the 4000T
ROMs, i.e. ROM space was freed by moving
workbench.library out of the ROM. This means
that a "Libs/workbench.library" file must be
present on the boot disk, as detailed below.
Improvements
The current 3.X ROM (45.066) builds on
the original 40.068 ROM components,
featuring the following improvements:
- Official Amiga patches (e.g. large
disk support)
- scsi.device and exec.library updates
by Alexander Benedictov, Chris Hodges,
Heinz Wrobel, Jeff Weeks and Toni Wilen
- expansion.library fixes and 68060
patches by Jeff
Weeks
- Ranger memory detection routine
replacement by Henryk Richter
- FastFileSystem fixes by Etienne Vogt
- mathieeesingbas.library fixes by
Harry "Piru" Sintonen
- Fix to floppy drive issue affecting
some systems in version 45.061
Support for Disks Larger than 4 GB
The scsi.device updates included in the
3.X ROM make it possible to boot from disks larger
than 4 GB. Additional elements, such as FastFileSystem 45.9 and Installer
44.10, are included in the
Classic Support Workbench 3.1
distribution, and complement the ROM-based
enhancements.
For maximum compatibility, the Amiga boot
partition should be the first partition of a
disk, and it should not be larger than 4 GB.
In order to remain compatible with older
software that uses 32-bit values to measure
disk capacity, a maximum partition size of 2
GB is recommended.
For additional information on support for
disks larger than 4 GB, see
Amiga Forever Workbench 3.1 Improvements.
Required "workbench.library"
Because workbench.library is not part of
3.X ROMs, a "Libs/workbench.library" file,
as included in the Classic
Support Workbench 3.1 set by Cloanto,
must be present on the boot disk. This
requirement is in common with later 3.1 ROMs
by Commodore and ESCOM, as used with the
Amiga 4000T model.
Before a system is upgraded to a ROM
version like 3.X where workbench.library is
not in the ROM part, it is best to make sure
that the workbench.library is installed on
the boot disk, so that the system can
continue to function after the upgrade.
For additional information on adding the
"workbench.library" file
(available
here), see Amiga Forever Workbench 3.1 Duplication Instructions.
"Startup-Sequence" Modification
Older versions of the SetPatch command
may not have been designed for use in
combination with newer ROMs. Such versions
of SetPatch may
either fail to work properly with 3.X ROMs,
or unnecessarily slow down the boot process
and waste memory by loading ROM modules that
don't need to be updated.
In these cases, a simple change to the
Startup-Sequence helps detect and avoid
updating 3.X ROMs. The SetPatch command
itself is still required, for example, to enable AGA chipset
features.
Open S/Startup-Sequence and look for the
following line:
C:SetPatch QUIET
Replace it with:
C:Version >NIL: exec.library 45 20
If WARN
C:SetPatch QUIET
Else
C:SetPatch NOROMUPDATE QUIET
EndIf
The NOROMUPDATE option was introduced in
SetPatch version 44.13. If used with
previous versions, it will give a "wrong
number of arguments" error. A version
of SetPatch that supports the NOROMUPDATE
option is available
here.
Such an updated "Startup-Sequence" file is
already included in the
Classic Support Workbench 3.1 set, where
it does not need to be edited manually.
Online Support
Each 3.X ROM set comes with a
license key that can be used to download the
ROM or the "workbench.library" file for
installation or recovery
purposes. To register for support, please
refer to
cloanto.com/genuine.
Related Links
