ROOL (c669a9aa) at 08 Dec 10:19
Add ReadMe for Replay applications
This change is mainly to enable a choice from several ROMs to be made at boot to softload, but it also...
Detail: The main changes are to the Prompt program, with parameters added to !Run and Loader.
Testing: Developed and tested on a Titanium running 5.24 softloading 5.28 & many 5.29.
Also tested on RPCEmu 0.9.4 with all combinations of:
ROOL (472ec526) at 01 Apr 11:35
Enable menu selection of Softload ROM at boot
No response, so will resolve.
No better ideas, so will resolve.
Detail: SparkFS was previously not offered as a package so that the read-only version didn't class with the full version.
ROOL (0992e9c9) at 24 Feb 11:36
Add 1 package from Utilities
Detail: SparkFS was previously not offered as a package so that the read-only version didn't class with the full version.
I think what you are seeing is as follows...
Using RPCEmu 0.94 with a 3.71 ROM which has previously softloaded 5.28, when it is next started and booted you see a Softload menu with 3.71 as the current ROM, plus 5.28 which is highlit as default. After a few seconds it will automatically softload 5.28.
Then, if the -all
parm is not specified in the !Run file, 5.28 will start and boot, with no Softload menu. The boot process continues as normal.
However, if the -all
parm is in the !Run file, when 5.28 starts and boots you will see a second Softload menu, but with 5.28 as the current ROM, plus another 5.28 which is highlit as default. After a few seconds it will automatically try to softload 5.28 (unless the selection is changed). The Softload program then displays a message soft-loaded OS
and it will end without any softload. The boot process then continues as normal.
The display of a second menu when -all
is specified is because it is not simple to determine if a softloaded ROM is running.
However, the second menu in the case above can be suppressed if the time difference between the Choices:Softload file being written and the time of the second boot is small (<30s). I just need to do some further testing before adding it to the merge.
Unless there are any better ideas...
When starting from a clean boot, there's an option for the base operating system that's installed in ROM (RISC OS 3.70 in my case) and options for any softload images that are available. If -all is added to the !Run file, then after restarting the option to unload the current image will display the name of the last selected softload image instead of "RISC OS 3.70".
Are you referring to the .NONE. on the Softload parm in Loader?
If so, we thought the .NONE. is in case the softloader runs out of memory trying to softload the 1st given ROM name, it causes the existing ROM to be unloaded (assuming it's soft too!), then the computer reboots, re-runs SoftLoad, and then the softload will now succeed. In that sense, it's harmless on Iyonix and Tungsten since there's always enough RAM for 2 softloads, it'd only trigger on a low memory Risc PC so it might as well be common to all. It has been in the parm in IOMDHALDev for some time.
In the interests of simplicity I decided a single Choices file would suffice, as any extra options could be added to that.
Can uou please clarify what you mean by 'the name of the physical ROM'? How/When will the last selection not be updated correctly?
Does it make sense to always allow unloading, even when -all isn’t specified?
It might be a good idea to create a subdirectory so that other configurable options can be added in the future.
Would it be possible to use the name of the physical ROM here? Using the name of the currently loaded ROM means that the last selection won’t be updated correctly.
This change is mainly to enable a choice from several ROMs to be made at boot to softload, but it also...
Detail: The main changes are to the Prompt program, with parameters added to !Run and Loader.
Testing: Developed and tested on a Titanium running 5.24 softloading 5.28 & many 5.29.
Also tested on RPCEmu 0.9.4 with all combinations of:
After the previous change, the facility to softload a ROM at boot is effectively the same on all these machines. This change generates it from a single Generic set of source files, rather than the sets for each of 5 build processes previously.
Some insignificant inconsistencies have been eliminated, and 14 files merged into 7.
The Prompt BASIC program is now BasicTxt, and Crunched for release.
A subsequent change will allow one of multiple ROMs to be selected.
Testing: All 5 builds have been generated by simulating the AutoBuilder, and the resulting zips compared before and after these changes with no significant differences found.