> > In a message dated Mon, 8 May 2000 00:27:26 -0400 (EDT), Sean 'Captain
> > Napalm' Conner" <spc_at_armigeron.com> writes:
> >
> > << Again, to bring this back on topic, there have been plenty
> > of operating systems distributed in ROM---AmigaOS, QNX, OS-9
> > and the original MacOS were all contained in ROM, were/are
> > ROMmable and extensible. (snip snip)
> Just like the original Amiga circa 1985, which loaded Kickstart off of disk
> into write once protected RAM. Why?? Because the ROM code had not yet been
> finalized when the computer was put on the market.
> Another fine example of how marketing guys try to BS electrons . . .
Well, exactly the same happened to the _very_ first Atari STs.
The ROM contained only a boot loader and the TOS/GEM had to be
loaded from Disk. In fact this is also the reason why the RAM
got doubbled (by piggy pack chips) from 256K to 512K for the
260 and 512K to 1 Meg on the 520, corrupting the naming scheme.
This phase did last only about 3 Month, so a boot ROM ST is
quite a collectabe thing, especialy since most got updated.
Servus
Hans
--
VCF Europa am 28./29. April 2001 in Muenchen
http://www.vintage.org/vcfe
http://www.homecomputer.de/vcfe
Received on Tue May 09 2000 - 09:46:47 BST