Overview
Workbench 3.1 was the last Amiga OS version released by
Commodore/Amiga, and the release by Cloanto aims to celebrate this version
trying to be as true to the original as possible without compromising
functionality. This is unlike the Workbench 3.X
environment, which intentionally added several recognizable
post-Commodore/Amiga features.
By popular demand, and consistent with
our original goal of preserving the Classic
Amiga heritage, the Amiga Forever series
always included ROMs, floppy disk images and
system updates also taking into account
"Classic Support" scenarios (for use outside
of emulated Amiga systems).
Thus, Workbench 3.1
became
available as sets of physical floppy
disks (e.g. for customers who purchased a
used Amiga computer, but were missing the
disks), preinstalled on CompactFlash and SD
cards, and in other formats. A license key
is always included, to make it possible to
additionally download a copy to update or
restore the original.
System Requirements
Workbench 3.1 requires a 3.0 or 3.1 Amiga ROM
("Kickstart") version, and is additionally
compatible with 3.X ROMs as used in Amiga
Forever.
Shared Improvements
In a careful balance of
preservation, restoration and innovation,
features of all Amiga Forever Classic
Support editions of Workbench 3.1 include:
- Dates were preserved, while file attributes and
comments were restored (relative to the distribution
by ESCOM and Village Tronic)
- Updated C/Version command (Y2K
patch)
- Addition of Libs/workbench.library
(for A-4000T 3.1 ROMs and 3.X ROMs)
- Updated S/Startup-Sequence
(conditional SetPatch, for 3.X ROMs)
- Increased MultiView stack to 32768
- Installer script improvements
- Updated Installer (43.3 or 44.10,
depending on CPU) and
FastFileSystem 45.9 (to support larger
disks)
- Installer itself is now part of the
system installation (inside the
Utilities directory)
Floppy
Disk Set
The Amiga Forever Classic Support floppy
disk (image) set consists of six disks, and features the same
improvements of the hard disk version.
Additionally, the installer script was
modified to support the changes, and with
some other enhancements
(e.g. to avoid "disk full" errors on large
disks and to fix some typos). All disks were
carefully tuned and defragmented for maximum
performance.
The floppy disk set can be used alone (to
boot and use the system), or to
create a new hard disk installation,
equivalent to the Amiga Forever Classic
Support hard disk image. Enhancements include the
installation of workbench.library, Installer
43.3 (on 68000 or 68010 CPUs) or 44.10
(on 68020+ CPUs), and FastFileSystem 45.9.
Hard Disk Image
The Amiga Forever Classic Support hard
disk image is the result of a
full
installation from the floppy disk set.
As part of this, the appropriate
Installer program is copied to the Utilities
directory, which is part of the system
search paths and which was also the location
chosen by Commodore/Amiga in many of its own
installations.
Depending on the desired video modes, one
or more monitor files may need to be copied
manually from "Storage/Monitors" to
"Devs/Monitors".
Support for Disks Larger than 4 GB
The installer script included on Amiga
Forever Classic Support media was improved
to support installation to hard disks larger
than 4 GB regardless of the Installer,
FastFileSystem and ROM version.
Full runtime support for disks larger
than 4 GB requires several elements, of
which FastFileSystem 45.9 and Installer
44.10 are included in the Workbench 3.1
distribution, whereas lower-level components
such as scsi.device come from a ROM update,
such as the 3.X ROM (supported, but not
included).
For maximum compatibility, the Amiga boot
partition should be the first partition of a
disk, and it should not be larger than 4 GB.
In order to remain compatible with older
software that uses 32-bit values to measure
disk capacity, a maximum partition size of 2
GB is recommended.
The FastFileSystem component itself may
be included in different locations: the
Amiga system ROM, the Amiga disk RDB, and as
a file (FastFileSystem, inside the "L"
directory of the system disk). Based on the
available versions, the system determines
which version to load.
For large disk support, confirm that
the destination disk RDB has an official
NSD-compatible FastFileSystem 43.20 or
45.9 or higher (e.g. use "Version DH0:
FULL").
To update the FastFileSystem stored in
the disk RDB, run Tools/HDToolBox, select
Partition Drive with [x] Advanced Options,
then Add/Update..., select FastFileSystem,
then Update using the FastFileSystem as
provided in the Amiga Classic Support
Workbench 3.1 distribution (use "Version
l:FastFileSystem" to check that version).
Emulation-Specific Changes
Workbench 3.1 versions that are included
in the emulation environment of Amiga
Forever include the above modifications
which are shared with the Classic Support
series, plus some emulation-specific changes
which are not part of the Classic Support
series:
- Added C/Shutdown command (for
shutting down the session)
- Added C/GetHostVar command (for
passing data from host to guest)
- Restored licensed speech-synthesis
files to Devs, L, Libs, Utilities
- Added Devs/DOSDrivers/Speak
- Added UAE RTG
files to Libs, Storage
- Set default printer to EpsonQ
(emulation has emulated EpsonQ printer)
- Updated S/Startup-Sequence to bind
in several utilities (NewIcons,
FullPalette, LhA, etc.) from Amiga
Forever Work partition, if present
- Updated S/Startup-Sequence to
support Cloanto S/AFShared-Startup
- Updated S/Shell-Startup to support
Cloanto UXCLI
- Edited SCSI_DEVICE_NAME in
Tools/HDToolBox.info ("scsi.device"
replaced with "uaehf.device")
Slightly different hard disk image file
names are used to differentiate between the
Classic Support ("workbench-310.hdf") and
the emulation-enhanced ("workbench-311.hdf")
versions.
For space reasons, because the 3.1 floppy
disk images contain additional emulation
support files, they do not contain a copy of
Libs/workbench.library. The file is however
included in both the 3.1 hard disk image
and in the preinstalled Workbench 3.X
environment.
For more details on "uaehf.device" vs.
"uaescsi.device" and other
emulation-specific changes see:
Online Support
Each Classic Support set comes with a
license key that can be used to download the
same set again for recovery or update
purposes. To register for support, please
refer to
cloanto.com/genuine.
Additional Enhancements
Workbench 3.1 remains true to the look
and feel and the feature set of the last
Workbench by Commodore/Amiga, including
support for 3.0 ROMs and the ability to boot
from floppy disks. For maximum
compatibility, no new ROM functionality is
provided in the disk set.
For additional enhancements, Amiga
Forever includes a 3.X ROM and an
environment named Workbench
3.X. Workbench 3.1 as discussed here is
compatible with 3.X ROMs.
Related Links
