Which Tos's support harddrive autoboot?

[Shannon]

I know that TOS 1.04 will autoboot a program if the "desktop.inf" file has the correct info in it, but are there other versions that autoboot as well?

[Thorsten Günther]

If I remember correctly, auto-loading of GEM programs was indeed introduced with Rainbow TOS (1.04). There are small programs on the usually suspected ftp sites that claim to do the same in earlier versions if put into the AUTO folder on the C: partition.

 

But I'd recommend 1.04 anyway (as did STuart Townsend, cf. Little Green Desktop), since this was the first version where many of the bugs of earlier versions in hdd handling were removed, plus each partition may be up to 512 MB in size.

 

 

Thorsten

[lp060]

I know that TOS 1.04 will autoboot a program if the "desktop.inf" file has the correct info in it, but are there other versions that autoboot as well?

 

The "desktop.inf" file has nothing to do with it. It's a combination of TOS and the hard disk driver software. Best to stick to TOS 1.04 or later.

[Shannon]

Really? All I know is that it was not working if the "desktop.inf" file was missing or the wrong one. I then noticed when loading that file in a text editor that it contained the directory name and filename of the ".prg" file that was being autoloaded when I ran the 1.04 TOS.

 

This was all under emulation, of course.

[ijor]

There are two different type of autoboot programs.

 

One is for TOS programs, that go in the AUTO folder. This should work with any TOS, and most hard disk drivers.

 

The other is GEM programs. This is written indeed in DESKTOP.INF and is supported in later TOS versions only.

[ijor]

There are small programs on the usually suspected ftp sites that claim to do the same in earlier versions if put into the AUTO folder on the C: partition.

 

Yes, there are some hacks to "force" automatic execution in all/most TOS versions, even those that don't have built-in support. Klaz should know better about them, I know he used and also fixed/enhanced them.

 

There was also the trick of hooking the mouse from the AUTO folder. The software would simulate a mouse double click once in the desktop.

[ppera]

There is problem with terminology. Autoboot stays for booting from hard disk. And all TOS versions support autoboot from ACSI attached hard disks. Only TOS 2.06 and 4.0x supports boot from IDE hard disks.

 

What Shannon means is called AUTO run of programs.