fujidude Posted July 10, 2015 Share Posted July 10, 2015 (edited) Help -> About shows the version number. Heh... I'm puzzled by the point about having to put ROMs into an ATR, since you can run uFlash from the SIDE loader and load the ROMs direct from the FAT on the CF card. And you can load the ROMs direct from a mirrored PC folder in the emulator and using AspeQt or similar. These methodologies have been amply documented in manuals, readme files, and in video walk-throughs. Maybe they're just not conspicuous enough. I keep my .vhd file on a flash drive, so am unable to mount it in Windows to put files on it. But say I went to the bother of moving the file to permanent storage, mounting it, putting the files on it, dismounting and moving back to its place on the flash drive; can UFLASH (loaded via SIDEload) recognize and use ROM files on the FAT file system if they are in long filename format? I know the SIDE loader itself has no trouble with long filenames, but I wouldn't have imagined a program like UFLASH would (since SDX FAT driver not going). Also, as to the help --> about displaying the version.... that's fine, but in a situation like what happened, if you are already thinking to check that then you don't need it. There is some advantage in some cases to have the version be conspicuous. Edited July 10, 2015 by fujidude Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted July 10, 2015 Author Share Posted July 10, 2015 ...can UFLASH (loaded via SIDEload) recognize and use ROM files on the FAT file system if they are in long filename format? No, and AFAIK no existing file system driver supports LFN (uflash is designed to work with file system drivers, i.e. DOS). Also, as to the help --> about displaying the version.... that's fine, but in a situation like what happened, if you are already thinking to check that then you don't need it. There is some advantage in some cases to have the version be conspicuous. The observation seemed to me "a version number would be helpful", and I'm telling you that it exists and where to find it. If you weren't already aware which version number you should be seeing, I doubt already having it on the screen would help. Just use whichever version was supplied with the ROMs and you can't go far wrong. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted July 10, 2015 Author Share Posted July 10, 2015 Anyone with adequate means of flash recovery who wants to help by testing the Incognito build before I let it loose in beta, please let me know via PM. As with the Ultimate BIOS, I'd feel better if at least another couple of machines had been exposed to it before general release. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Stephen Posted July 10, 2015 Share Posted July 10, 2015 Anyone with adequate means of flash recovery who wants to help by testing the Incognito build before I let it loose in beta, please let me know via PM. As with the Ultimate BIOS, I'd feel better if at least another couple of machines had been exposed to it before general release. PM sent. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lemiel Posted July 13, 2015 Share Posted July 13, 2015 Althought my U1MB from Candle second batch still waits for install - but this moment is much closer now - I have proposal / question. If you are using Hias code to provide UltraSpeed compatibility maybe it will be good option (for us, not you, because you will have additional work on code and I don't know how much free space is left) to add Turbo and Synchromesh (38k and 68k) compatibility. I know that they are much worse speeders than US, and Synchromesh for Indus needs drive to be programmed first, but XF-551, Hyper XF and 1050 Turbo will work in high speed without special loaders. Real Ultimate High Speed solution. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted July 13, 2015 Author Share Posted July 13, 2015 Finally the two kind pre-beta Incognito test volunteers will get their ZIP files this evening. Two bugs delayed things, and what classics they were (and harder to trace owing to the lack of emulation). First bug (fixed on Saturday) concerned the new Incognito PBI BIOS. Simply hung the machine on boot when activated. Explored numerous possible causes at great length, before finally (later than I should have) doing a ROM dump and discovering that the flasher assumed that only the first three banks of the PBI ROM were used and ignored the rest. Four out of the six are now used, so that was one bug dealt with. The second bug concerned Colleen mode in the main BIOS. OS, SDX, RAM and BASIC settings were present in NVRAM and in the config record in IO RAM, but never got written to the hardware registers. This was a real cracker since the effect appeared to be one value in RAM inexplicably changing to another without any writes occurring. It was caused by the hardware type register (bit 5 of $D382) unexpectedly switching out the IO RAM at $D1xxx before the config lock had even been applied to the main configuration register. The light bulb moment came from the simple realisation that the IO RAM would not exist in Colleen mode, although I'd assumed the hardware select bit didn't take effect until the configuration lock was applied. How wrong I was. If you are using Hias code to provide UltraSpeed compatibility maybe it will be good option (for us, not you, because you will have additional work on code and I don't know how much free space is left) to add Turbo and Synchromesh (38k and 68k) compatibility. I know that they are much worse speeders than US, and Synchromesh for Indus needs drive to be programmed first, but XF-551, Hyper XF and 1050 Turbo will work in high speed without special loaders. Real Ultimate High Speed solution. These are just the kinds of suggestions I was hoping for, although I'll need to investigate Synchromesh and Turbo since I know nothing about them. Hias' High-Speed code was almost "drop-in", in fact, aside from my typing errors and some changes required for dynamic selection of OS or high-speed VBI. But I learned more about the Atari's serial IO from looking at Hias' code than from anywhere else, so hopefully more things could now be added without breakage. Any technical references or code samples would be welcomed. Trouble is, there are about 400 bytes free in the Ultimate PBI ROM (from 8KB in total, which houses the HDD BIOS, FAT file system used by ATR mounting, and of course HiSIO), while the Incognito PBI BIOS has a further 4KB of ROM (12KB in total), although this is hardly usable if I wish to keep both PBI BIOSes broadly compatible and built from the same source as they are now. I considered things like SIO-level RAMdisks but abandoned them simply because of headaches I could foresee concerning conflicts with DOS's own drivers, but yeah - I'm open to ideas of how to usefully utilise the remaining space (although some headroom should remain for bug-fixes and future refinements). 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyle22 Posted July 13, 2015 Share Posted July 13, 2015 IIRC, GT-Sync, XF, and other High (but not Ultra) speed drives set the high bit on the command byte sent to the drive, that tells the drive to increase baud rate. Don't quote me on that, it's been a long while since I worked with that stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted July 13, 2015 Author Share Posted July 13, 2015 Note that Hias' existing code already supports 1050 Turbo - meant to mention that too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lemiel Posted July 13, 2015 Share Posted July 13, 2015 (edited) That was why I asked for it. http://atariki.krap.pl/index.php/Top_Drive_1050- 1050 Turbo - $06 for 68k http://atariki.krap.pl/index.php/Synchromesh- $10 for 38k and $06 for 68k (Super Synchromesh) I am not sure about Hyper XF HyperSpeed - is it Turbo but with 57k? But it also uses regular UltraSpeed. From http://blog.3b2.sk/igi/post/Hyper2b-XF-10-MANUAL.aspx Command: ($3f) Function: DATA I/O read SIO speed byte: Receive 1byte AUX1/2: without meaningA byte is sent to the computer ($09), with which the computer is adjusted to the high Datatransfer (Ultra or hyperspeed). This is done via registering the byte in $$D204. With Ultra speed data must be transfered with this command in high datatransfer. With hyperspeed mu? the command byte with set bit 5 and 7 tobe sent and after the receipt of the command AK byte to the high data rate be switched. Hyperspeed corresponds to 5 in the command byte of the Original-XF551-High-Speed up to the higher data rate and setting bits. Edited July 13, 2015 by lemiel 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted July 13, 2015 Author Share Posted July 13, 2015 OK - thanks for those infos! I've pinned them for later attention, and this will ensure I continue to have plenty to do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roydea6 Posted July 13, 2015 Share Posted July 13, 2015 Has anyone had a problem with saving the Complete Bios 512 KB with the newest uflash.xex .. I get a bunch of HEX $FF at the top of the Rom.. Like it is not saving the SDX slot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted July 13, 2015 Author Share Posted July 13, 2015 (edited) I'll take a look at it Roy: more than likely I broke it. EDIT: Yes, I have. Hang fire with your tests if need be. I'll get it fixed up sometime tomorrow. Edited July 13, 2015 by flashjazzcat Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted July 14, 2015 Author Share Posted July 14, 2015 Quick and dirty ROM dump fix for anyone who needs it in a hurry: uflash.xex This breaks Sic! cart dumping, but Sic! cart everything was broken anyway and it's not relevant to Ultimate/Incognito. Thanks again for the report Roy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted July 14, 2015 Author Share Posted July 14, 2015 Anyone else get an unwanted coldstart on reset in Colleen mode on the Incognito (with the original BIOS and SDX enabled)? Wasted hours supposing this was down to a bug in the new BIOS, until I tested the old one and that reboots as well. Relieved in a way, but it's troubling nevertheless. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stefan Both Posted July 14, 2015 Share Posted July 14, 2015 Dear Jon, I'd like to test it, but I'm afraid "killing" my U1mb like I did last time. I've still no programmer yet. Stefan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted July 14, 2015 Author Share Posted July 14, 2015 You're wise to be cautious, but even when it's been well tested, there's bound to be the odd machine that blows up. One tester in Poland had very serious issues which simply could not be explained by software bugs. If your machine is stable and reliable, however, you should be OK. A USB programmer is always a useful thing to have even if simply updating slot descriptions. Personally, I enjoy 100 per cent flashing reliability (using Uflash), but I would never be without my EasyPro 90B. So far the Polish tester is the only person to encounter a serious problem, and I have received no bug reports whatsoever regarding the BIOS. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marius Posted July 14, 2015 Share Posted July 14, 2015 I have received no bug reports whatsoever regarding the BIOS. Of course... It had the genuine and very rare prowizard's sign of approval 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Stephen Posted July 15, 2015 Share Posted July 15, 2015 Well, I finally got some time to try the update. I was going to do it via the SIDE loader for speed. When I load uFlash, it tells me it cannot recognize the hardware automatically. I chose Incognito, but got the message "Need CPLD Update". I don't know if I should try using this new BIOS via an SIO device now, or if I should update my Incognito? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fujidude Posted July 15, 2015 Share Posted July 15, 2015 (edited) Well, I finally got some time to try the update. I was going to do it via the SIDE loader for speed. When I load uFlash, it tells me it cannot recognize the hardware automatically. I chose Incognito, but got the message "Need CPLD Update". I don't know if I should try using this new BIOS via an SIO device now, or if I should update my Incognito? I don't want to speak for FJC, but when I had this happen with the U1MB update (on an Altirra machine), it turned out I was using the older version of UFLASH. The older version was in my PATH, and was taking precedence over the brand new UFLASH that goes with the new BIOS. Once I ran the correct UFLASH it understood everything as expected and worked great. Consider though that was U1MB, and on emulation. Caution is always advised with real ROMs. Edited July 15, 2015 by fujidude Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted July 15, 2015 Author Share Posted July 15, 2015 (edited) If we take things at face value, this error message means Stephen's Incognito requires a CPLD update before it can be flashed from the loader. It was a known issue Candle addressed in firmware, and this is why the flasher tests for it. As for not recognising the device at all: if the correct version of the flasher is used, this might simply mean the BIOS is so old it lacks identifiable ID bytes. Stephen: try flashing from an SIO device. I'll talk to you in PM about the CPLD update. Edited July 15, 2015 by flashjazzcat Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MARIO130XE Posted July 15, 2015 Share Posted July 15, 2015 Hi, is it only me? I was trying the update in Altirra over and over again and I always end up in a boot-loop. No SDX is loading, no SIDE2 HDD emulation, no disk image is booting, nothing. all I can do is pressing F6 to go inside the setup menu and change BIOS-Settings. No OS is loading, no Basic, nothing. After flashing I have crazy ataciis in the rom list. (screenshots) I have the same boot loop issue, when I directly attach the ultimate.rom file in the firmware list in Altirra settings. Only the ultimate setup is working. nothing else. Any help is very welcome. Greetings Mario Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted July 15, 2015 Author Share Posted July 15, 2015 Odd. Send me your Ultimate ROM (before and after)? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roydea6 Posted July 15, 2015 Share Posted July 15, 2015 Hi, is it only me? I was trying the update in Altirra over and over again and I always end up in a boot-loop. No SDX is loading, no SIDE2 HDD emulation, no disk image is booting, nothing. all I can do is pressing F6 to go inside the setup menu and change BIOS-Settings. No OS is loading, no Basic, nothing. After flashing I have crazy ataciis in the rom list. (screenshots) I have the same boot loop issue, when I directly attach the ultimate.rom file in the firmware list in Altirra settings. Only the ultimate setup is working. nothing else. Any help is very welcome. Greetings Mario Check options dialogue box and select as needed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MARIO130XE Posted July 15, 2015 Share Posted July 15, 2015 Okay. Here are the ROMs ROMS_b4_after_flash.zip Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted July 15, 2015 Author Share Posted July 15, 2015 (edited) Thanks! Also: if uflash IDs the hardware by recognising the original BIOS and then you flash an entire ROM which contains the new BIOS, it may be that the BIOS update is overlooked. Reboot immediately following the full ROM update. I guess the flasher should re-identify the hardware after a full ROM flash, given the BIOS may have changed. Edited July 15, 2015 by flashjazzcat Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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