TTOS BLUE (TOS version 3.00)

[dhedberg]

Hi,

I bought the broken TT that was advertized here a while ago. I've repaired it and fixed most of the problems and it now boots properly to the Desktop. Found something interesting about it though. It has an odd TOS version, labeled TTOS BLUE on the ROMs, and it boots up the computer with a blue screen and seems to have support for HD 1.44MB FDD without toggling DIP switch 7. When running SYSINFO it reports TOS version 3.00 with a date of June 6, 1990. As far as I know TOS version 3.01 was the first officially released version?

Running the diagnostic cartridge it reports CRC errors on 2 of the ROMs, which indicates they are not offical ROMs but patched ones. Does anyone know anything more about a TOS 3 version called TTOS BLUE? I'm thinking about dumping and disassembling the ROMs to be able to compare it to the official TOS, but it may be hard if there are no offical TOS 3.00.

Thanks,
Daniel

[Gaiyan]

Interesting. I understand that the release date of 3.01 is 1st of March 1990 which would make this a later release.

[ThorstenOtto]

The 3.01 versions i have report an release date of 29. Aug 1990, so that might actually be an older version. The reported GEMDOS version is also older, 3.01 reports 0.19, and 3.06 0.20

[Gaiyan]

The 3.01 versions i have report an release date of 29. Aug 1990, so that might actually be an older version. The reported GEMDOS version is also older, 3.01 reports 0.19, and 3.06 0.20

At least DE 3.01 versions are indeed 29 August 1990 as probably others. US should be 1.3.1990. Do you have US?

[dhedberg]

The 3.01 versions i have report an release date of 29. Aug 1990, so that might actually be an older version. The reported GEMDOS version is also older, 3.01 reports 0.19, and 3.06 0.20

Yes, I noticed this too, so it does look like a patched version of 3.00. Perhaps the date of the patched ROM is when it was released as a patched ROM?

It would be interesting to know if it was an official release from Atari or done by someone else. I guess it could be an *internal* Atari version where they tested various features that were to be included in future versions (such as support for 1.44MB FDD). Perhaps they named those versions BLUE and made the initial boot screen blue to easily identify them? The machine is a US machine.

Also, I'm curious to find out what this version has besides support for 1.44MB. One other thing I've noticed that is different from my other TT running TOS 3.06 is that the Atari logo in the Desktop information dialog is in red. Haven't had time to explore the menus yet.

I'm going to replace the ROMs with 3.06 eventually. I don't know if there's any interest in preserving this version or if somebody would like to spend time investigating what exactly is different in this version compared to say 3.01? I doubt I'll find the time to do that even though I'd like to.

--Daniel

[ThorstenOtto]

Do you have US?

No, only german version. Later releases all had the same dates, whether us or not, but maybe this one was made in a hurry, and thus released before the european versions.

Also, I'm curious to find out what this version has besides support for 1.44MB.

i would call that missing support for 720KB floppies. Afaik, almost all TTs had 1.44MB floppies, but TOS 3.x and TOS 2.x are very similar, and other machines might only have 720KB. Maybe support for it was added later.

I don't know if there's any interest in preserving this version

Definitely, i think this is a very rare version. I guess at least Dima will be interested in it, he is collecting them on http://avtandil.narod.ru/tose.html

if somebody would like to spend time investigating what exactly is different

That's another matter I once started to try to reconstruct the differences between 3.05 and 3.06, but finally gave up on it. They aren't really functional very different, but lots of things have moved around, which makes comparing them a mess.

[czietz]

http://toshyp.atari.org/en/010007.html has TOS 3.01 dated 09.08.1990 and 29.08.1990. The BIOS source code has...

Code: Select all

*
* Revision 2.23  90/08/03  13:21:50  apratt
* TTOS FINAL RELEASE
*


... and other comments make it clear that the format is YY/MM/DD there. So, June 1990 would be prior to the TOS release. Hence, it is really a rare version.

I'm going to replace the ROMs with 3.06 eventually. I don't know if there's any interest in preserving this version or if somebody would like to spend time investigating what exactly is different in this version compared to say 3.01? I doubt I'll find the time to do that even though I'd like to.

Yes, please dump it and post it here. I'm also interested in TOS version history.

[Gaiyan]

http://toshyp.atari.org/en/010007.html has TOS 3.01 dated 09.08.1990 and 29.08.1990. The BIOS source code has...

Code: Select all

*
* Revision 2.23  90/08/03  13:21:50  apratt
* TTOS FINAL RELEASE
*


... and other comments make it clear that the format is YY/MM/DD there. So, June 1990 would be prior to the TOS release. Hence, it is really a rare version.

I'm going to replace the ROMs with 3.06 eventually. I don't know if there's any interest in preserving this version or if somebody would like to spend time investigating what exactly is different in this version compared to say 3.01? I doubt I'll find the time to do that even though I'd like to.

Yes, please dump it and post it here. I'm also interested in TOS version history.

Fascinating. This list has the 1st of March 1990 assigned to the 3.00 version.

[czietz]

PS: Also, given that I have (part of) the contents of the version control system used for the TOS source code, I can see that Atari went through different boot screen colors for TT-TOS prerelease versions, presumably to make them easier to differentiate. They had magenta in March 1990, orange in April, dark blue and green in May, light blue in June, yellow in July, and finally went to white in August.

[Gaiyan]

PS: Also, given that I have (part of) the contents of the version control system used for the TOS source code, I can see that Atari went through different boot screen colors for TT-TOS prerelease versions, presumably to make them easier to differentiate. They had magenta in March 1990, orange in April, dark blue and green in May, light blue in June, yellow in July, and finally went to white in August.

Well that's quite definitive. You should've started off with that

[dhedberg]

PS: Also, given that I have (part of) the contents of the version control system used for the TOS source code, I can see that Atari went through different boot screen colors for TT-TOS prerelease versions, presumably to make them easier to differentiate. They had magenta in March 1990, orange in April, dark blue and green in May, light blue in June, yellow in July, and finally went to white in August.

That indeed explains it all! So what we have here is a TOS 3.00 BLUE, which is a pre-release/pre-build of what became 3.01 eventually. I wonder how this TOS version ended up in this TT though as the main board is of a later revision.

[ThorstenOtto]

Maybe that machine was provided to some developer?

[wongck]

PS: Also, given that I have (part of) the contents of the version control system used for the TOS source code, I can see that Atari went through different boot screen colors for TT-TOS prerelease versions, presumably to make them easier to differentiate. They had magenta in March 1990, orange in April, dark blue and green in May, light blue in June, yellow in July, and finally went to white in August.

Wow nice piece of history of TT-TOS...

[Cyprian]

PS: Also, given that I have (part of) the contents of the version control system used for the TOS source code, I can see that Atari went through different boot screen colors for TT-TOS prerelease versions, presumably to make them easier to differentiate.

cool, that's nice piece of a history.
would be possible to share it widely?

[czietz]

cool, that's nice piece of a history.
would be possible to share it widely?

It's available on dev-docs: https://www.dev-docs.org/docs/htm/searc ... IOS+source. Look into the RCS folder. You either need to be able to manually interpret the file format or you can install the ancient RCS version management system.

[Cyprian]

Thanks Czietz for pointing this out

[dhedberg]

Here it is!
A dump of TTOS BLUE (TOS 3.00 US - development build with blue boot screen).

Check out the menus in the Desktop, very sparse!

grab0003.png

grab0002.png

Had trouble running some software on this version. Especially hard disk drivers. For instance HDDriver bombed out. ICD Pro freezed. Atari's own driver worked though.

Have fun,
Daniel

[penguin]

You found the missing link between TOS 1.04 and TOS 3.01! According to article from that time, developer machines were given to various companies. Here is an interview with various publishers: http://stcarchiv.de/tos1990/06/impressionen

The TT-TOS is still called TOS 030 at that point, although it might be a name given out by the press. They mention that applications like Adimens, Signum, Script, STAD and Creator are compatible and Flexdisk (ram disk) was updated to support the TT. Calamus was updated, though the developers blamed themselves for the initial incompatibility. There's no mention of the TOS color, but it's likely that they used a monochrome display anyway.

TTOS Blue has also a different resolution switch.

ttosblue.png

[penguin]

Some more screenshots. The Blitter option is replaced by the Cache option in the menu. There's also a high density option in the format dialog. Both features fit with the description of TOS 030 of German media.

tos.blue.png

tos-highdensity.png

[dhedberg]

Thanks for posting the link to the related article! Interesting read. When I first explored this version of TOS it did strike me how similar to TOS 1.4 it is. I think this must be a fairly early version of 3.0. It's very sparse in the menus, and as I mentioned before it seems to lack features/functions or have bugs that makes it impossible use any modern HDD driver. It's adaption to the new hardware is probably not complete. Most likely there are other software that will not work properly as well. Nevertheless, it was fun to play around with!

[leech]

Kind of curious now, since if I recall correctly, the TT was released a few years before the Mega STe, and I think the Mega STe was the first system released with TOS 2.x? So did they actually release TOS 3.x before they released TOS 2.x? This version kind of shows that they did.

[penguin]

Kind of curious now, since if I recall correctly, the TT was released a few years before the Mega STe, and I think the Mega STe was the first system released with TOS 2.x? So did they actually release TOS 3.x before they released TOS 2.x? This version kind of shows that they did.

There was only a gap of about a year or so between both machines. The TT was finally shown to the public in 1989, still with TOS 3.00 (or TOS 030 as Atari called it). It was finally available a year later, with TOS 3.01. The Mega STE was shown in 1990 and delivered in 1991. TOS 2.x/3.01 share most of the code including the NewDesk that was missing in TOS 3.00. MegaSTE was the first system released with TOS 2.x, followed by the STBook (if you can call it released...). TOS 3.x was also used in the Medusa and Hades computers.

[leech]

Kind of curious now, since if I recall correctly, the TT was released a few years before the Mega STe, and I think the Mega STe was the first system released with TOS 2.x? So did they actually release TOS 3.x before they released TOS 2.x? This version kind of shows that they did.

There was only a gap of about a year or so between both machines. The TT was finally shown to the public in 1989, still with TOS 3.00 (or TOS 030 as Atari called it). It was finally available a year later, with TOS 3.01. The Mega STE was shown in 1990 and delivered in 1991. TOS 2.x/3.01 share most of the code including the NewDesk that was missing in TOS 3.00. MegaSTE was the first system released with TOS 2.x, followed by the STBook (if you can call it released...). TOS 3.x was also used in the Medusa and Hades computers.

Oh yeah, I had forgotten that the Medusa and Hades got TOS 3.x

My Mega STe and then TT030 had come with 2.05/3.05, but then my original Mega STe's motherboard went bad and we got a new one that had TOS 2.06 in it, so that was nice. I ended up ordering 3.06 like a year or so ago for the TT. But of course now I have all the equipment to burn my own. Fun how self-sufficient we have to become now to keep our systems running and up to date