[ProgSoc] Bootup -> Amiga startup-sequence

[Ben Reardon <benjamin@nospam.progsoc.uts.edu.au>]

On Thu, 6 Aug 1998, Paul Mclachlan wrote:

> On Thu, 6 Aug 1998, Bryn ''Curious'' Davies wrote:
> > 
> > I seem to remember that being very easy on the Amiga ;)
> 
> I guess the thing is, on the IBM you've got a tiny little BIOS with some
> utility routines for outputting to the screen, on my old '500 you had 512k
> worth of ROM code, graphics libraries, math libraries, etc, etc.  On the
> Amiga, the only thing you had to do in the boot sector was say 'yes, boot
> now, please' (or words to that effect).  I think the bootsector on the
> Amiga was primarily there to allow non-OS things to boot - there was
> certainly no need for it to actually bootstrap anything.

Yes, all the hardware configuration settings are setup before the
Workbench request screen/hd bootup. This is the reason amiga screens go 3
shades before they are actually awake enough to boot off floopy/hd. Its a
(presently forgotten) series of hardware and ROM checks.

However, when the hardware is all checked correctly, it checks boot
sectors of the disks (depending on which version of Workbench... another
entirely seperate matter). The standard boot sector would point to a file
in rom, which would in turn point to s:startup-sequence (IE. Boot me
please :) ).

And yes, anything which didnt point to ROM could do anything that you
could tear out of the machine (which was surprisingly high)

> Just my guesses. :)

Surpringly close too :)

Ben Reardon.

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