@node Operating System
@chapter The Operating System
This chapter handles questions concerning the operating system, Kickstart
as well as the Workbench.

@menu
* Softkickers:: Can I use another Kickstart than the builtin?
* Dot-Replacement:: What is the Amiga equivalent of . (Current directory)?
* Pipe:: The PIPE: queue-handler
@end menu

@node Softkickers
@section Can I use another Kickstart than the builtin?
First let's drop some words on the Kickstart's Copyright: This belongs to
Commodore, you @strong{must not} use Kickstarts, without the right to do it!
Especially it isn't allowed to make an image of anyone else's Kickstart and
run this on your own Amiga. (I even doubt that it is allowed to do this on
your own Amigas, if you have more than one.)

But of course it is possible and allowed for some people, developers for
example.
There are two different ways, a hardware solution and a software solution.
The former is to buy a card which can hold two or more Kickstart ROMS and
allows to select between when the System is booting.

The software solution needs a program (softkicker) and an image of the
ROM. The softkicker allocates RAM, loads the ROM image into the allocated
memory and reboots. Of course you have less RAM after the Reboot: 256Kb when
running Kickstart 1.2 or 1.3 and 512Kb for Kickstart 2.0 or higher.

There are different Softkickers, some of them needing a MMU (@pxref{68EC0xx,
MMU,MMU}). I recommend SKick 3.43 (Aminet,
directory @file{util/boot}) because it doesn't need a MMU and supports many
different Kickstarts. It is rather easy to create the ROM image using the
following program:

@example
    #include <stdio.h>

    #define kickorig 0xf80000   /*  0xfc0000 for Kick 1.2 und 1.3   */
    #define kicklen  0x080000   /*  0x040000 for Kick 1.2 und 1.3   */

    void main(int argc, char*argv[])
    @{
        FILE *fh;

        if ((fh = fopen("kickstart.file", "w"))  !=  NULL) @{
            result = fwrite(kickorig, kicklen, 1, fh);
        @}
        fclose(fh);
    @}
@end example


@node Dot-Replacement
@section What is the Amiga equivalent of . (Current directory)?
@cindex Current directory
@cindex . (replacement)
The AmigaDOS equivalent for the . representing the current directory
on Unix and certain non-reentrant interrupt handlers is the empty
string, which is written as "".

Example:
@example
    COPY S:Startup-Sequence ""
@end example
@noindent
copies your Startup-Sequence to the current directory.

There is some FD software available to patch a Unix-like
interpretation of . and .. into the AmigaDOS, including,
but not limited to, Martin Scott's UnixDirs. (Aminet,
@file{os20/util/UnixDirsII.lha} or Fish-disk 837)

Arno Eigenwillig (arno@@yaps.dinoco.de)


@include os-pipe-e.texinfo