nonvolatile and petunia

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Raziel
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nonvolatile and petunia

Post by Raziel »

Maybe someone can shed a light.

What does nonvolatile.library do?
I know nv "ram" back from the cd32 days to save game states, but what good it is for in AmigaOS4?

Same question goes for petunia.library.
While i know it was written to make OS3 stuff backwards compatible and provide an easier transition to AmigaOS4/PPC, but do i still need it?
I don' think i have/use any 68k programs anymore and even if i would and it would crash on me, i'd know why.

So, can i remove both of them from kicklayout to save some ram/speed or would i exchange it for compatibility problems?

Thank you
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ZeroG
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Re: nonvolatile and petunia

Post by ZeroG »

Same question goes for petunia.library.
While i know it was written to make OS3 stuff backwards compatible and provide an easier transition to AmigaOS4/PPC, but do i still need it?
petunia is the core of the JIT-68k-Emulator.
There is still the normal 68k-Emulator in the Kernel so you could theoretically remove it.
I don' think i have/use any 68k programs anymore
You know that ARexx for example is still 68k-Code?
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Raziel
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Re: nonvolatile and petunia

Post by Raziel »

@ZeroG
You know that ARexx for example is still 68k-Code?
Ah, that rings a bell, thank you very much :-)

Source code of AREXX is lost or something, right, can't be recompiled for PPC?
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ZeroG
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Re: nonvolatile and petunia

Post by ZeroG »

Source code of AREXX is lost or something, right, can't be recompiled for PPC?
Yes.
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nbache
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Re: nonvolatile and petunia

Post by nbache »

As for nonvolatile, it gives you access to the UBoot/CFE variables, so e.g. the xxxide_dev drivers need it, as well as the NVGetVar command.

I wouldn't bother disabling either of those, even if you didn't get any direct problems (or could live with them), I doubt you'd be able to see any improvements.

Best regards,

Niels
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Raziel
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Re: nonvolatile and petunia

Post by Raziel »

Got it, thank you all
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chris
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Re: nonvolatile and petunia

Post by chris »

nonvolatile.library also theoretically lets you save/load CD32 game states from a drawer in SYS: (I think it's libs:nvram or something like that), however I'm not convinced this functionality is in the OS4 version as when I tried it many years ago it didn't appear to work.
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polluks
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Re: nonvolatile and petunia

Post by polluks »

Raziel wrote: Sun Jan 15, 2023 11:00 am Source code of AREXX is lost or something, right, can't be recompiled for PPC?
"ARexx is written in 68000 Assembly, and cannot therefore function at full speed with new PPC CPUs"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARexx#History
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tonyw
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Re: nonvolatile and petunia

Post by tonyw »

@polluks

Actually, this is no longer true, although technically the rewritten C version is still in beta. I've no doubt it will be released one day.
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Raziel
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Re: nonvolatile and petunia

Post by Raziel »

@tonyw

Oh cool.

So, theoretically speaking, once the rewritten arexx is available, *could* I get rid of petunia?
Or is there some other 68k stuff that won't be replaced any time soon/ever?
People are dying.
Entire ecosystems are collapsing.
We are in the beginning of a mass extinction.
And all you can talk about is money and fairytales of eternal economic growth.
How dare you!
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