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bootfloppyretro-computingamiga

How to develop an Amiga application that is bootable from a floppy disk (NON-DOS)?


Following up on the "How do I code and compile an Amiga application?" question, which development library is required to boot an Amiga application from a floppy disk?

Update: (2012-04-10) To consider the question solved, I have edited the title and body to focus only on the library. Still missing are boot from floppy deployment tools that can be asked in another question.


Solution

  • Detailed description of how to write boot blocks on floppies

    You'll need to learn how to use trackdisk.device. I strongly advise not bypassing trackdisk; the requirements to read floppies are tricky and you have to know the allowed mechanical variances; the trackdisk floppy code is really, really good and deals with errors better than anything anyone else did. Published books on how to "code at the bare-metal level" for the Amiga (and in particular the book on using the floppies directly) have so many errors and failed assumptions that my copy had a forest of stickies marking errors.

    Note bene: I was the person at Commodore who totally rewrote trackdisk for AmigaOS 2.0.


    If you're talking a normal AmigaOS application, you'd have a startup-script file on the disk to boot the disk and start the application (plus minimal set of AmigaOS files), and an icon/executable to start it if the Amiga booted off another disk or HD. Hunt around, and search for info on making a bootable disk for the Amiga.