TheChaplain
4 days ago
There is an updated 2025 version available for free on AmiNet; https://aminet.net/package/docs/misc/rkrm-dos
rapjr9
4 days ago
That's actually the ROM Kernel Reference Manual (RKRM), not the Hardware Reference Manual. The RKRM was another great reference manual for the Amiga. Quoting from the preface:
The Amiga operating system is composed of libraries, devices and also resources, all of which provide APIs and data structures for shell commands and Workbench tools to make use of. The foundations on which everything else in the operating system rests are the Multitasking Executive (“exec.library”) and AmigaDOS (“dos.library”).
dos.library itself depends upon exec.library, it is “just” another operating system component after all. You might have expected that AmigaDOS plays a much greater part in the operating system, but the Amiga operating system is not constructed around its DOS component. Almost every Amiga program makes use of exec.library, such as for accessing libraries and devices, but not every Amiga program has need of what dos.library provides. Of course, also libraries and devices can make use of dos.library, such as by opening files on the context of the caller of a library function. Great care must be taken to verify that the caller is indeed a process.
AmigaDOS encompasses dos.library, the CON-Handler, the RAM disk implemented by the RAM- Handler, the default file system and the command line Shell, as well as the shell commands on disk. These components came, mostly, from TRIPOS (Trivially portable operating system) [11] where they were part of a much larger networked multitasking operating system . As one of the last pieces to fall into place in 1985, the components were specially adapted for the Amiga and were not written by the original Amiga and Commodore developers. Both the Amiga operating system and TRIPOS had in common that they were built around non-copying message passing in a shared memory space, which enabled AmigaDOS to work “hand in glove” with the architecture and the means provided by exec.library.
obarthel
3 days ago
The "Amiga ROM Kernel Reference" manuals were a set of books published by Addison-Wesley which detailed the Amiga operating system APIs, its data structures, purpose and architecture. Three editions were issued between 1985 and 1992. The complete set of the final edition would comprise the "Amiga ROM Kernel Reference Manual: Libraries", "Amiga ROM Kernel Reference Manual: Devices", "Amiga ROM Kernel Reference Manual: Libraries" and "Amiga ROM Kernel Reference Manual: Includes & Autodocs". The "Amiga Hardware Reference Manual, 3rd edition" and the "Amiga user interface style guide" were published at the same time but did not cover the same ground as the ""Amiga ROM Kernel Reference Manual" set.
What was always absent from the "Amiga ROM Kernel Reference Manual" set was good coverage of the AmigaDOS component of the Amiga operating system. While documentation was available as part of "The AmigaDOS Manual" (published by Bantam Books), it barely scratched the surface. The "Amiga ROM Kernel Reference: AmigaDOS" volume you quoted from was not written by the Amiga and Commodore developers, but by Amiga operating system software developer Thomas Richter, quite recently. It is based upon earlier research conducted by Amiga software developer Ralph Babel and others, filling in the many blank spaces which the "The AmigaDOS Manual" did not even address.
Note well that this volume is not to be mistaken for the "Amiga Hardware Reference Manual, 3rd edition".
sitkack
4 days ago
Hardware Reference Manual https://archive.org/details/amiga-hardware-reference-manual-...
This is gonna get a bot stuck :)