File Release Notes and Changelog
Release Name: 0.6
Notes:
Dear Atari Community!
We are happy to announce the third beta release of EmuTOS
EmuTOS 0.6 --- 23. Feb. 2003
INTRODUCTION
EmuTOS is a single-user single-tasking operating system for the 32 bit Atari
computers and emulators. It is meant to be a replacement for the
TOS-images typically needed today for using emulators and it is also
running on some real hardware, like the Atari Mega STE. As all the source
code is open and free it is could even run on totally new machines in the
future.
EmuTOS has been developed for nearly two years now and is licensed
under the OpenSource Gnu General Public Licence (GPL).
CHANGES SINCE LAST RELEASE
- Working vr_trnfm implementation
- Native feature interface for emulators
- Correct usage of 68040 instruction cache
- Dead key support
- Boot delay with info screen (hold Alt key to skip boot)
- Initinfo visually improved (countdown effect and other changes)
- Hold Ctrl key at boot causes not loading the ACCs
- XHDI implemented (allows running FreeMiNT)
- Frees CPU in emulators, when not used (STOP instruction)
- Up to 16 color mode in 640x480 in Aranym
- Detect-native-features ON by default (ARAnyM, STonC, STonX)
- Keyboard fixed for XaAES
- AES icon masks fixed
- EmuCON fixed and available from EmuDesk menu
- Shutdown added to EmuDesk menu
- much enhanced Falcon VIDEL support (including boot in color)
- NVRAM works
- Better VIDEL support
- Many bugfixes and much more done
DESCRIPTION
EmuTOS is basically made up of six parts:
- The BIOS, which is the basic input output system
- The XBIOS, which provides the interface to the hardware
- The BDOS, which are the high level OS routines, what you know as GEMDOS
- The VDI, the virtual device interface - means the screen driver
- The AES, the application environment services or window manager
- The desktop, which is the graphical shell to the user
The BIOS and XBIOS code is our own developement. It is really written from
scratch and implements nearly all of the TOS 1.0 BIOS functionality, and a
bit more, like e.g. harddisk access and STE sampled sound. A few things
like printing, midi and serial stuff is missing for now, but may be
implemented at some point in the future.
The GEMDOS part is based on Digital Research's GEMDOS sources, which were
made available under GPL licence in 1999 by Caldera.
The graphical parts like VDI and AES are now more or less fully
implemented. They work in all the graphics modes of the original Atari
ST. On some emulators EmuTOS can be patched to work with much bigger
screen resolutions without any problems.
The desktop is not as nice as the original one, but is pretty usable
now for a start. You are free to use a more advanced desktop
replacement any time, like teradesk for example.
Since EmuTOS just implements the TOS's functionality, you might want to
use MiNT on it in order to run more modern software. EmuTOS is not an
alternative to MiNT. But EmuTOS is the only free base OS to boot MiNT.
EMULATION AND FUTURE PLATFORM
EmuTOS and MiNT cooperate well. For the future we plan, that both can make
use of a yet to implement standard native call interface for emulators.
EmuTOS itself still uses this new standard native interface for all
its supported native functions. When running EmuTOS in an emulator,
this interface will provide access to use the power of the underlying
OS kernel. It may allow using modern 3D graphics cards, will provide
fast native filesystem access and will enable you to use networking
with all bells and wistles - and many things more you always dreamed
of. This all will at first get possible on the Aranym platform.
This is, what EmuTOS is made for: A free OS, that can evolve. Progress has
been fast up to now, because we have a small, but enthusiastic development
team and are eager to see EmuTOS running with GEM and all.
HARDWARE
Making EmuTOS running natively on a new hardware platform is more or less
just a question of driver support for EmuTOS. The same for MiNT, if you'd
like to have it running on top of EmuTOS.
This is the currently supported Hardware:
- CPU support for m68000, m68010, m68020, m68030, m68040
- FPU detected
- Memory controller (both ST and Falcon)
- Monitor type detection (mono or not)
- WD 1772 Floppy disk controller (write track not tested)
- DMA controller
- MFP
- PSG
- ST shifter
- STE shifter (partitially)
- ACIAs, IKBD protocol, mouse
- MegaST Real-Time Clock (set clock not tested)
- NVRAM (including RTC)
- DMA sound
- The native feature interface to some degree
AVAILABILITY
EmuTOS has its home at sourceforge:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/emutos
A ready made EmuTOS image or the source can be downloaded from:
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=36560
It is always available in source form from our CVS server at:
http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=36560
If you are just curious or would like to help us develop this nice little
OS, you are invited to subscribe to our Mailinglist for developers at:
http://sourceforge.net/mail/?group_id=36560
We hope that you like EmuTOS. If you have any suggestions or comments, we
always appreciate to hear the good and also the bad things about it.
Your EmuTOS development team.
--
written by Martin Doering
http://emutos.sourceforge.net/
Changes:
