| Posted By
MMS
on 2008-10-17
15:34:52
 |  GEOS from EPROM? possible via emu and in real Plus/4
I had a weird idea yesterday evening. I did remember, that C64 GEOS supported the RAM extensions, even able to print to laserprinters rom GeoPublish.
We know, that the 3+1 ROMs almost useless. Hardly any use, even in the real Plus/4, it was a real crap.
Questions:
1) Is GEOS+4 able to run from sRAM eg. 512KB would be enough (for all potential applications included), and map/bank it to the place of original EPROM, and it would look like a drive9? The GEOS would start to F1 button.
I saw some special hardwares on this page with "Csory-256KB-Memoryexpansion" or "- 256kB RAM after Hannes/Solder/CSORY +- 384kB sRAM extension. Above at the expansion haven is the battery".
I suppose the GEOS is able to detect the more RAM too, and use it somehow..
2) If the above is not possible, and I saw the intention to extend any of the Emulators in the way Geos put into a mapped eg 1581 disc as drive 10 with GeoPublish, Geopaint, etc? and able to start to F1? I know it would not be the REAL Plus/4 anymore, but that thing with more memory would be more like a small Amiga  ) Well Plussy can do it, I know...
Why I have this idea:
I want to build a very compact, but well expandable and silent PC (real PC, something between the barebones and notebooks), would look like an Amiga1200, but I would call it Plus/5 and would be high gloss black .
I have the idea to make a startup menu initiate the PC from beginning like a plus/4 in fullscreen with emulator BUT it should be MORE up-to-date than the original one. (or you can start as Plus/4 or as Plus/5 mode).
Plus/5 would have such features like GEOS starting on a keypress with all good applications included in one bigger package (nice UI, fast loading from RAM, no special disc downloadings, no disc swappings), some mouse emulation (if possible, what about TCFS Blue Angel thing?), SID-card emu, more RAM, so would contain all the good things developped into this small machine since 1983.
Also I am working on a shell rom ASTON to make a desktop + animated iconsets would make XP surface a plus/4 style one... so even starting this special PC would have a familiar UI.
Then I would ghost this install, and create such PCs for the guys needing it... In the background there would be all things needed to iuse it as a good PC (Openoffice, Ifranview, etc), but certainly only freewares.
Yeah, no Linux, because none of the installs really working fool-proof on my PC, maybe my AGP ATI HD2600pro causing the troubles, but I am not aLinux expert...
Actually the biggest block is the housing. so the first version would look like more as a C128, with built-in drive (but it would be a slot-in DVD-burner ), very slim, silent thing. I bought 2 Mac LC475 houses, I want to use them as a basis, with very latest PC HW inside. I consider Atom platform too, but the latest AMD chipset with powerful integrated graphics also sounds good.
http://www.oldmac.jp/image/lc475-01.jpg
PSU would be out off house, internally only DC inverter PSU would be:
http://www.mini-box.com/s.nl/it.A/id.417/.f
the biggest problem is the external AC/DC PSU brick with the right power
I now, how the final should really look like, but:
- Would need special custom housing. I think I should not tell you, how much the tools would cost...
- I want the keyboard to be swappable to able to create up-to-date looking PC, and retrostyle keyboard too from the same basis
- The heatpipe cooling with fan for the CPU (some low power consumpiton Dual core Intel) still too high for such housing.
- VGA card fixation in vertical position still a question, as the size and cooling fan varieties are just too high.
Anyhow, do anyone think GEOS may work like this in real Plus/4? Or via Emu?
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Posted By
SVS
on 2008-10-17
17:44:07
 | Re: GEOS from EPROM? possible via emu and in real Plus/4
I did studied GEOS some time ago, when I released the preliminary English version that all you around know.
GEOS 3.5 has some features that wellknown 2.0 version (that one for C64) has not. For example colors: 3.5 has more colors but, apart odd background shadows, it can run successfully most of 2.0 applications.
However the main difference is that 3.5 works *only* with 1551 drives and max number is 2, contrary of the 2.0 that can have more. Furthermore uses a turbo designed for 1551 only.
The ram expansion detecting present in GEOS 2.0 is not here, anyway it would work only with proprietary c64 ram expansions.
So much road is to do in order to obtain what you dream
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Posted By
MMS
on 2008-10-18
03:21:07
| Re: GEOS from EPROM? possible via emu and in real Plus/4
Thanks for the prompt answer...
-Sorry to ask, but there is no Plus/4 release from the 2.0 version ? )
-It also means, that GeoPublish and the other applcations I can find on FTPs will work on the Plus/4 version too?
-Is there any chance to realize the RAM-banking support realized by some guys, like the Csory RAM extension?
Yeah, the GEOS was a real breakthrough UI on 8bits, connected to fast devices (may prevent continuious swapping of discs, etc) may result similar experience as the Amiga was in the late 80s (later on they had better OSs, but the original one is not better then GEOS from UI and applications point of view, or maybe even worse...).
Yeah, looks it remains a dream... So there is no way to attach more than two GEOS discs at the same time? Can they work concurrently? Or you should switch between drives manually?
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Posted By
SVS
on 2008-10-18
05:56:08
| Re: GEOS from EPROM? possible via emu and in real Plus/4
From your questions:
- No there is any previous version but 3.5;
- Many 2.0 applications (for c64) do work with 3.5; at cost of a little problem: the applications are not designed for colors managements, then they work with black foreground color, and with previous 3.5 applications background colors (a sort of shadows colors...). But in most cases the result is acceptable.
- Eh eh maybe, but it should need of much study on GEOS (disassamble, etc.). I have a good referring manual of 2.0. The 3.5 is a porting then there is much common.
The disk management is done by GEOS, then you can have 2 1551 disks online, normally the first one (named A) for GEOS system, and the second one (named B) for applications. I tried with 2 real units set as device#8 and device#9 and result is excellent.
You can switch from one to other being the desktop showing the content of the disk.
When do you start the project?
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Posted By
MMS
on 2008-10-18
15:43:56
| Re: GEOS from EPROM? possible via emu and in real Plus/4
Still thinking: is there no way to move the GEOS to 1581 format? It has much higher capacity. So one single drive could contain all. Is it too complex? I know, that 1581 was as slow as 1541 with a C64, and Plus4Emu does not support is (as I remember), but still.
BTW, here is a good link, where a guy put as downloadable versions several GEOS applications, like GeoPublish, GeoCalc, several graphic collections, GeoCanvas, GeoBasic (!)
Still had not time to check them...
http://www.bithunter.eu/geos.htm
ohhm, hungarian! sorry. I know, that there are very good huge FTP sites for that, but this on is really focusing on the best packages, if anyone interested.
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Posted By
IstvanV
on 2008-10-18
16:23:14
| Re: GEOS from EPROM? possible via emu and in real Plus/4
> 1581 was as slow as 1541 with a C64, and Plus4Emu does not support is (as I remember)
plus4emu actually does support the 1581, although emulating it uses somewhat more CPU than either the 1541 or the 1551. The reason why you cannot explicitly select "1581" in the drive configuration is that 1581 emulation is automatically enabled if you try to attach something that looks like a D81 image It is theoretically also possible to use real 1581 disks in the PC floppy drive (assuming there is any, and it is compatible enough that it can read the "raw" data on the disk), but this probably does not work on Windows.
> I saw some special hardwares on this page with "Csory-256KB-Memoryexpansion" or "- 256kB RAM after Hannes/Solder/CSORY +- 384kB sRAM extension. Above at the expansion haven is the battery
As far as I know, the most common/best supported type of memory expansion is "Hannes 256K"; this presumably also has a 1024K and a 4096K version.
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Posted By
MMS
on 2008-10-19
16:43:07
| Re: GEOS from EPROM? possible via emu and in real Plus/4
Istvan, very wise and at the same time logical too to support 1581 ONLY when you load such an image looks that
I work on that Retro-PC project since last December, although the main efforts were made on the purchase of the macs, looking for low-profile heatpipe cooling, small mATX boards with proper size, height and performance, and cables for the PCI-X16 raiser.
Yeah, still looks than only AMD790 based and underclocked AMD system would able to provide the power and power consumption I wish, BUT the size (24cm) still too big. Very rarely I see
There are almost no flex-ATX boards, and the MiniITX ones ( http://mini-itx.com/ ) have no PCI-X16 connector needed for VGA-expansion and low on USB ports, as I need minimum 8 (for a specific new feature I do not describe here in details).
Before I buy anything, I should deeply go into the best selection, as I am a little low on budget... Looks that I may wait the miniITX2.0 standard's first mboards, if the processor will be enough. 17x17 cm is SMALL, and this is what I really need (+low height + good performance ).
http://www.via.com.tw/en/initiatives/spearhead/mini-itx_2.0/
This is a closest thing I have in my mind, but this one is not my work, just found it close to my idea:
http://www.freewebs.com/examiga/Amiga%20Fantasy/AMIGA-fantasy1.jpg
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Posted By
MMS
on 2008-10-19
17:00:57
| Re: GEOS from EPROM? possible via emu and in real Plus/4
BTW, I would not limit this out-of-ox readily installed set to be plus/4, as under different "users" other 8 and16 bit computers I planned to intergate into a single package.
So the Amiga (with the "amiga in the Box " release), C64 and C128 would have 1-1 "user" at XP startup, you may choose which Theme and ready-instally you prefer. Certainly emulators, applications, games (eg top100), demos, tools, and YES, GEOS would be collected under folders/subfolders, but the PC can directly start in the emulated mode, if preferred.
By this approach (I am still thinking of Spektrum too ) I would open that PC to several thousand people willing to have the same feeling again without huge efforts (collecting all these stuff info your PC needs a lot of efforts), in atiny, but silent and strong PC.
Not to mention, that most of those people who is in the focus, are in their late 30s, early 40s, so they can easily spend in W-Europe ~500-700€ to such a Retro-PC.
In fact the special swappable keyboard and housing (imagine something like a mobile phone) could result custom-made Amiga, C64, or Spektum-looking PC, while the original design would be the nice black Plus/5
There is an other big problem: who would produce it? Commodore is a good idea, but they have no real budget nowadays... Dell is out of focus (just selling their companies), and Amiga is also focusing only on SW, they even did not design a proper housing for A1 motherboard (in fact it is a shame).
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