The Guide - Kickstart 19/09/97

Kickstart versions - Being a precise and true account of the histories and foibles of the nefarious Kickstart ROM as it passed through history - as accurately recalled by Master Matthew Garrett in the Year of our Lord nineteen hundred and ninety seven.

This document is unlikely to destroy your computer, your family, your cat, your relationship, your house, your car, your country or your planet. However, should it somehow induce a current in your microwave oven causing it to switch on while the door is open, lightly boiling your cat which then collapses into the sink blocking it and flooding your kitchen, causing the central heating boiler to short out and explode, wiping out a large chunk of the area and being mistaken for a nuclear strike, thereby bringing about the annhilation of the entire planet, it isn't my fault.

Though I'll understand you being mildly upset.

Those Kickstarts In Full

1.0 - the first one of it

Not terribly common, this only came with the Amiga 1000. I've never seen it, and so am not at liberty to divulge any more information. Because I don't know any. On the "Amiga Forever" CD, which I may investigate further at some point.

1.1 of it

The first widespread Kickstart. Only available for the Amiga 1000, it came on disk and was loaded when you switched on the machine. It fails miserably on my 3000, so it appears that it's fairly useless. Really.

1.2 - the next one of it

A pretty vast improvement on 1.1. This came as standard on early 500s and 2000s, and was available as an upgrade to the 1000. On a disk.

1.3 - the mightiest of all Kickstarts

This one added built in hard drive support, the shell (You could use cursor keys! Yay!) (Damn it! Explain how! - Ed.) (Oh, all right then. Using the Shell, the cursor keys allowed you to move around the line you had just typed, thereby removing the need to delete the hideously tedious command to list all the files in a directory created since the 23rd February and then write them to a script allowing you to delete the lot, after you've just noticed that you spelt list with a k. You could also press the "up" cursor key to bring back something you had just written. You know, the sort of thing that is stunningly useful yet never appeared in DOS. Happy now?) and a few other bits and pieces. Otherwise, much the same. 500s, 1000s and 2000s again, folks. Oh, and some early 3000s.

1.4 - so far mythical

Very rare. This was a sort of pre-release of 2.0, and can be found hidden in some 3000s. Runs almost nothing, crashes a lot and is generally even less use than 1.1. But apparently looks quite like Windows 95.

2.0

Only for the 3000. This was the first of the new generation of Kickstarts and was twice the size of the old ones, now weighing in at 512K.

2.01-2.03

Bug fixes to the above.

2.04

The first wide spread release of 2.0. This came as a surprise to many when they opened their Cartoon Classics boxes to find a spanking new 500 Plus that wouldn't run half of their games. Commodore's PR machine in action again. Also appeared in the 2000 and as an upgrade to every machine other than the 1000.

2.05

This was from the 600, and was much the same except that it supported the PCMCIA slot.

2.1

A software-only upgrade. This ran on a 2.04 or 2.05 ROM and gave a few new features like "locale" and "prefs".

3.0

A souped up 2.1 with support for AGA and several new features and refinements, like datatypes. Only released for the 1200 and 4000, developers could get it for the 3000. In fact, it runs on the 500 and 2000 as well, but you couldn't buy it.

3.1

Much the same as 3.0, with a few bugs fixed. And the major advantage that you could actually buy it. For instance. Available for everything except the 1000, unless you can solder.

So, that's the important listing. However, there was also a list of version numbers that is less commonly known.

V30 - 1.0 (1984?)
V31 - 1.1 (1985)
V32 - The PAL version of 1.1, allegedly. (1985)
V33 - 1.2 (1986)
V34 - 1.3 (1987)
V35 - 1.3 with support for the A2024 monitor.
V36 - 1.4-2.03 inclusive. (1990)
V37 - 2.04 and 2.05 (1991)
V38 - 2.1 (1992)
V39 - 3.0 (1992)
V40 - 3.1 (1993)
V42 - A few bits and pieces Commodore released in early 1994.
V43 - Anything official since 1994.

So, there you have it. To round us off, a list of common Kickstart versions.

V31.? - A1000 1.1
V33.180 - A500 1.2
V34.005 - A500 1.3
V37.175 - A500 2.04
V39.106 - A1200 3.0
V40.63 - The A600 version of 3.1
V40.68 - A1200 3.1
V40.70 - CD32 3.1

Anything above 40.70 has built in CD-ROM support.

The last version released by Commodore was 40.74. Unfortunately, at this point nobody could be bothered filling in the version history, and so nobody knows what the difference between 40.70 and 40.74 is. Other than whoever wrote it, of course. The good for nothing layabout student hippy. Matthew Garrett